


To Be Human

by ohlooktheresabee



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Affection, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asexuality Spectrum, Asperger Syndrome, BAMF John Watson, Case Fic, Demisexuality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Gore, Hair, Hurt Sherlock Holmes, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Sherlock Holmes, John Watson Takes Care of Sherlock Holmes, John is a Bit Not Good, Kidnapping, M/M, Medical Procedures, Non-Consensual Haircuts, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Neurotypical, POV Alternating, Protective John, Queerplatonic Relationships, Serial Killers, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Is Not Okay, Sherlock Holmes Needs a Hug, Sherlock is a Mess, Sherlock's Heart, Synesthesia, Thriller, Torture, Touch-Starved, Vulnerable Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 78,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22195783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohlooktheresabee/pseuds/ohlooktheresabee
Summary: There is a serial killer on the loose with a penchant for collecting the brains of his victims. Sherlock, John and Scotland Yard are on the case, but something about the chosen victims has Sherlock on edge. While they piece together the clues that will lead to the killer, John begins to realize that the way his best friend thinks may sometimes be more a hindrance than a help….Set after HOTB, but doesn't reference canon particularly.***NOW COMPLETE***Russian translation by Little_blueberry available here:Быть человекомhttps://ficbook.net/readfic/10270172
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 389
Kudos: 427
Collections: Sherlock Author Showcase 2020





	1. Chapter 1

John wandered blearily into the kitchen, hair still mussed from sleep, pulling his dressing gown more securely around his waist. The previous evening Sherlock had wrapped up their latest case (complete with moonlit chase across the rooftops) so John had slept like a baby. They were both unharmed, the fraudster was caught, and John had the day off work. He intended to spend it updating his blog and mindlessly scrolling the internet, perhaps even watching a film later if he felt really crazy. First things first – a bacon sandwich. All was right with the world. 

Except of course it wasn’t. The kitchen countertop was full of the kind of complicated glassware that looked like a glass-blower had had a serious case of the hiccups, the sink was full of something that resembled the primordial ooze, the first cupboard he opened contained what seemed to be the skeletal remains of a miniature schnauzer and his bacon had apparently been replaced with a jar of furry caterpillars… that on closer inspection, were in fact human eyebrows. John closed the fridge door and leaned against it, bashing his head gently on it a couple of times for good measure.

“Is there some reason you are attempting a concussion at this time in the morning?” came an amused baritone from the direction of the living room. John stalked in that direction, fueled by righteous anger. 

“Sherlock, if there is one thing anyone can tell you, it is do not mess with an Englishman’s bacon. What did you do with it?” He glared at his errant flat mate who had barely glanced up from the laptop on his knees. Sherlock looked completely composed in his sleepwear and blue dressing gown, though for the havoc he had wrought on the flat he could only have slept a few hours. John stalked over to where he was sitting, standing leaning over him, for all the difference it seemed to make. 

“I needed the fridge space John. If it is really such an issue, Speedy’s makes a decent bacon sandwich and will be open in… one hour twenty two minutes. An hour thirty five if Samuel stayed at his new girlfriend’s place last night.” He continued clicking on the laptop, the light from the screen illuminating the disinterested look on his face. 

“Are you telling me you threw my bacon in the bin? You decided it wasn’t important, so you threw it away?” John fumed. “If I look in the kitchen bin, am I going to find it in there?” Sherlock glanced up. 

“Ah no, actually there was an… incident with the bin. Really, it was a very low quality item, it couldn’t stand up to chemical refuse at all. I had to take the whole lot outside before a skylight appeared in Mrs. Hudson’s flat.” He said this as if the poor bin construction was the real issue of the morning and knew that John would heartily agree with his assessment. 

“For god’s sake Sherlock! So now we need a new bin as well?”

“Yes that would be prudent don’t you think? You can add it to the shopping list.” 

“The shopping list that I have to use, you mean? The one that two days ago had ‘bacon’ on it?” Though none of this was new to John – the lack of interest, lack of apology, lack of even basic eye contact – he was really building a head of steam. The fact that he’d actually had a proper night’s sleep for once was probably part of it; he finally had the energy to get properly angry. Sherlock seemed to notice it too, as he slowly closed the lid of the laptop and cocked his head to the left as if working out what had set his friend off.

“As I said John, I needed the fridge space. Once I have collected the necessary data I am going to conduct an experiment with the eyebrows that will crack one of Lestrade’s cold cases wide open!” His eyes glinted in delight, willing John to share in his excitement, but became more restrained as John continued to look irate. 

“That’s all very well and good Sherlock but there are various things in that fridge that belong to you – things you could have thrown in the bin, before you MELTED that as well. It is not OK to throw out things that belong to me!” John folded his arms. 

“You never minded before.”

“Of course I bloody minded! In fact I bloody well shouted about it the last time too!”

“Oh. I must have deleted it.” He said with an air of indifference, but it didn’t fool John. He was gratified that Sherlock was leaning back into the cushions ever so slightly, but annoyed that his eyes were still creased in his ‘I-don’t-understand-humans’ expression.

“Deleted it. Of course you did. Because it was useless information, right? Deleted it to make way for something more important?” Sherlock seemed to sense he was on dangerous ground, though still unsure as to why.

“Deleted it to make way for new information.” 

“New information, alright. Well here is some brand new information for you, Sherlock.” John leaned further forward, causing a faint look of alarm to cross Sherlock’s face. “If you ever throw out my bacon again, I am going to invite Mycroft over here for tea and cake everyday for a week. He owes me.” Sherlock scowled.

“You wouldn’t. And he wouldn’t!”

“Yes I would, and yes he would. He knows I still haven’t forgiven him for that nightmare with the Blanderschnitt case, and this will be the perfect way to make it up to me. Cake for him, retaliation for me, and a nightmare for you. Don’t even think about testing… is that my laptop?!?” Sherlock’s eyes flickered towards it momentarily before raising again. 

“I had to collect some data before starting the eyebrow experiment.”

“Give it here,” John snarled making a grab for it. Sherlock was faster, wrapping both arms around it like a child with a teddy bear. 

“But John!” he whined. “I need it! For the case! I need it much more than you do!”

“What the hell happened to your own laptop then?” John said, shifting his weight, ready to pounce and take back his property at the first opportunity. His lovely day of mindless internet scrolling seemed to be disappearing rapidly before his eyes. 

“I don’t know, it’s not working properly, there’s something wrong with it.” Sherlock had lifted both oh his long bare feet onto the couch at this point, knees up to his chest, whole body cocooning John’s laptop. 

“Then take it to a shop and get someone to fix it!” John shouted.

“I can’t do that! There will be people!” Sherlock said in a please-be-reasonable voice. “I just want to borrow this one!”

“Well how long do you want to borrow it for?” John sighed, sagging backwards slightly. 

“I was thinking… forever?”

“Sherlock!”

“Alright alright I’ll just use it until you get back from the shops, I will be finished by then.”

“The shops?” said John incredulously. “Why on earth am I going to the shops?”

“You said you don’t want to wait for Speedy’s to open and you seem intent on having a bacon sandwich, so the only option is for you to go to the 24 hour Tesco for replacement bacon. Really John, I envy you.” Sherlock uncoiled though he still held onto the laptop securely, shimmying it slightly under the fold of his dressing gown. 

“You envy me?”

“Yes, to be able to be so slow sometimes. It must be so nice and quiet in your head.”

“Argh!” John snarled in frustration, launching himself at Sherlock and yanking the laptop from the startled detective’s grasp, who seemed to let go out of sheer surprise. “Alright that is IT! Do you know what is going to happen right now? YOU are going to get dressed, and YOU are going to go to Tesco, and YOU are going to get me a new pack of bacon and YOU are going to collect the rest of the shopping as well! THEN if you manage all of that, you can borrow my laptop for ONE hour and that is IT! Are you getting me right now? Is this clear enough to you?”   
Sherlock was pressed so far back against the couch now that he almost seemed at one with the green leather. His eyes were wide and confused, waiting for John’s rant to end.   
“Well?!?” John shouted again. Sherlock hesitated, clearly trying to think of a way to phrase what he wanted to say without setting John off further. 

“But I don’t like Tesco.” he settled on, though by his face he knew he was fighting a losing battle. “There will be people.” he repeated as if this fact had escaped John’s notice. 

“Yes there bloody well will be people, and one of those people will be YOU! Or I swear to god Sherlock Holmes I will be inviting your brother over here so fast you won’t even have time to put on your socks!”

“Alright alright,” Sherlock said, raising his hands in a placating manner. However he still did not seem to fully grasp the fragility of the situation as he voiced, “But it would still be much more efficient for you to go, you know where everything is. I’m just going to get distracted.” 

“You are not a child Sherlock! And you can just as easily learn where everything is as I did. Now go and get dressed, go to the shops, and be back here with some bacon and the rest of the stuff within the hour or I’m putting in an order for Mycroft’s favorite black forest gateau, you get me?”

*********************************************

Sherlock strode quickly down Baker Street, anxious to get this task over and done with as fast as possible. After getting dressed, he had again appealed to John’s better nature but John seemed beyond furious. It didn’t make any sense – Speedy’s at that point would open in an hour and John wouldn’t even need to cook or clean anything. Sherlock had offered to buy him as many bacon sandwiches as he wanted, but John had snarled something about money not being the issue and that had been that. While completely content with leaving other people of his acquaintance in what would commonly be termed, ‘a mood’, he placed far greater value on his relationship with John Watson. He was much more interesting than the masses - in many ways the man was a total mystery to Sherlock – his motivations, his needs, and above all his easy acceptance of Sherlock and all of his quirks. 

Well… usually it was an easy acceptance. The morning argument had been very confusing and all seemed to turn on the premise that Sherlock did not value the same things that John valued… which was absolutely true. Was that a failing though? Did he have to like the same things as his flat mate to be deemed proper or acceptable? And what about the borrowing of things? Sherlock knew that friends borrowed things from each other when they needed to, he had seen this happen multiple times, and he had needed the laptop. However the nuances of said borrowing obviously escaped him and needed to be explicated, but John was not in a level-headed enough mood to go into detail. Sherlock would have to draw up some sort of borrowing code of conduct for reference, he mused, trying to distract himself from the trial that was to come as Tesco came into view. 

He paused across the street, hands gripping the inside of his coat pockets, so in one of them the shopping list was no doubt becoming a crumpled illegible ball. However he knew the main items that he needed to get in order to placate John and return their living situation to an affable calm – a new kitchen bin (which he doubted they sold at this small Tesco), a pack of bacon (extras to put in the freezer to avoid this situation reoccurring), dish soap (John had gathered more steam while he got dressed and pronounced he, Sherlock, needed to clean the sink and do the dishes as well), bread, and bin liners. All very simple (dull) but sadly necessary items to John’s apparent well-being. 

If only these items were not housed inside one, loud, bright, colorful emporium. If there had been a dish-soap store Sherlock would have been far more amenable to visiting it, followed by the bacon store, etc. But sadly, no. Everything was lumped together with seemingly little to no organizational structure, in a maze of a place filled with people just waiting to be deduced, deduced, deduced. Already Sherlock’s brain was whirring with possibilities of what might bring people to the store at such an early hour. Out all night? Insomniacs? Homeless? Night-shift? Munchies? Early flight? Early train? Early flight then early train? He shook his head softly, cursing his own mind. He hadn’t even crossed the street yet and already felt like he was breaking out into a cold sweat. 

No, this was ridiculous. It was just a shop, people went in them all the time. Not Sherlock of course, but other people. He had been in them once or twice but he tried very hard not to. Nasty loud smelly uncomfortable places. It was almost as bad as being on a busy tube train – something Sherlock would rather chew his own arm off than do voluntarily. However, he could do this. He had to. John was annoyed with him which shouldn’t cause such an acidic feeling to settle in his gut, but it did, and there it was. Into battle. 

He crossed the street and went inside, eyes blinking to adjust to the overhead fluorescents. One of them was buzzing steadily (should have been replaced 2 weeks ago but other evidence – cracked window, oil stain on ceiling, exposed wire – told him that the maintenance workers had not been in recently) and another blinking a staccato pattern (no discernible pattern unless it was a variant of Morse code used primarily by Ukrainian activists in Russia but the likelihood of that was 0.056% however this was not a small enough factor to yet label it impossible…) causing Sherlock to blink more than usual and throwing him slightly off-balance as he strode into the store. There was a turnstile to enter and exit (turns at a maximum rate of 12 times per minute, problematic if ever a cause for swift evacuation) and signs above giving some idea of where to locate various produce (‘Cleaning Supplies’ and ‘Kitchen’ both indicate the presence of dish soap but how to know? A housewife would categorize dish soap as belonging in the kitchen but a university student as being a cleaning supply… More investigation needed…) the golden smell of bread (seven varieties… no nine…) wafted towards him from the left and the sound of music from a tinny amplifier (Christmas songs already? Wasn’t it only October?) from the right… As Sherlock found himself coming to a vaguely overwhelmed halt, he suddenly felt this shopping expedition had been a very ill-advised plan indeed. He hadn’t been to a shop like this since John had moved in, and apparently his tolerance for it was now even lower than it used to be.

Bacon! If all that came of this miserable exercise was that John could fry up some bacon, Sherlock was sure that his mood would improve sufficiently for this morning’s interlude to be forgotten. Bacon must be kept refrigerated, meaning it was likely to be kept towards the back of the store where venting for refrigeration units was most likely installed out of the public eye. He took a steadying breath (no, not nine varieties of bread, one of them was a croissant, though he supposed the argument could be made…) and started to make his way towards the back of the store. He had to pass several people (married, 47, DJ, secret side-gig as a male stripper… single, 22, flu, needs broad-spectrum antibiotic or will not be returning to university classes in psychology anytime soon…) and when one of them smiled and nodded at him it was all he could do to turn his head into his upturned collar and charge past. Had that been a friendly smile? Predatory? Was this person a fan? Was it a pitying smile? What was the nod in agreement of? Had it been a nervous twitch? What was the correct response to this interaction? (this last question was an opaque quagmire of social nuances not worth a million pounds to wade into). When Sherlock finally reached the refrigerated area, his heart was pounding along with his head and he felt chilled as the lower ambient temperature reacted to the light sweat he had produced. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, breathing slowly in and out, listening to the buzz of the far-off light (e-flat?) and tried to rearrange his thoughts. 

“Oh my god, it’s Sherlock Holmes!” Suddenly there was a hand clapping his shoulder. Sherlock reared back and looked up to see what was going on. There were four elderly ladies (widow, remarried, cheating on married friend with husband, widow with three cats…) goggling at him, backing him effectively into the refrigerated display. He felt his heart rate jump back up, feeling both aggravated with himself and with the situation. Meeting new people one-on-one in his own territory was one thing; this was something else, something he knew he was no good at. And John, his social shield, wasn’t here. He didn’t know how to do this…

“It is him, look I said it was him didn’t I Esther? Hello Mr. Holmes, so nice to see you! Are you here about a case?” Her breath was sour like a bright green cloud of mist and she was so near to him. He turned his face away, glanced around and was flummoxed by the reflections from the glass displays and the never-ending stream of input swimming and flashing in front of his eyes about item, cost, ingredients, origin, color, size, connotation, instructions, the blinking of the lights, the green breath, the music Ding Dong Merrily on High… 

“Mr. Holmes? Are you alright love?” The hand was back on his shoulder and he flinched back again, taken completely off guard, knocking some cheeses onto the floor and making a warning sound he didn’t even recognize. Trying to regain some equilibrium while berating himself internally, he shut his eyes again. 

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m just… can you just back off, a bit?” he said in as rude a tone as he could conjure up. Go away!

“What was that dear?” The elderly women crowded even closer and all of a sudden Sherlock could not stand having them so near. An irrational wave of panic ghosted over his skin, and so having nowhere else to retreat, he slid down the fridge door and onto the floor, hands pressed over his ears and his eyes firmly shut. “Oh goodness!” The ladies crowed in unison, and Sherlock wished in that moment for nothing more than to crumble into ash and blow away. Oh, how he hated this place!

“Sherlock? That you down there? Excuse me ladies.” Angelo! Sherlock chanced a look up, hands still over his ears, and saw Angelo (teal velvet jogging suit, one size too small, gold chain costing more than average monthly income, highly suspicious…) gently nudging the gathering crowd out of the way. Sherlock’s stomach lurched uncomfortably at how all this must look – the Great Detective a quivering mess of the floor of the cheese section – and clapped one hand over his mouth in case the nausea should get any worse. “Hi Sherlock! You alright? Let’s get you up and outside, yeah? Bit of air, fresher than in here, right?” Sherlock looked at his outstretched hands rather doubtfully, then seeing no other option allowed himself to be hauled to his feet. Angelo smelled red and spicy but familiar, and kept up a stream of nonsense audio as he piloted him by the shoulders through the gawkers, down the aisle, through the turnstile, and back out of the store. He didn’t stop until they reached a concrete bollard which he parked Sherlock on unceremoniously, then offered him a cigarette. Sherlock stared at it dumbly for a couple of seconds, one hand still over his mouth. “I’m sure your good doctor won’t mind just one to calm down, eh?” Sherlock felt himself flush at the implication, but took the offered cigarette and light from Angelo’s outstretched hand, taking a drag deeply in relief. His head quieted and the violet sweet tobacco smell muffled all else for a few blissful seconds. “Bloody vultures,” Angelo ranted conversationally. “Can’t even let you go shopping in peace. How about you tell me what you needed and I’ll nip back in and get it for you?” Sherlock looked up at him then as one might his very namesake, for at that moment the former-housebreaker-turned-restaurateur-Angelo surely was an angel.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are roaring into Chapter 2 where we start getting into the case stuff. Comments always welcome, enjoy!

Miracle of miracles, Sherlock had reappeared back in the flat almost exactly an hour later with nearly everything on the shopping list, and even made an attempt at putting the things away. John watched for a while over the screen of the laptop, amused in an exasperated sort of way, as his flat mate held the roll of bin liners and cast around for where to put them. He seemed to settle on the bread box for some reason when John decided to take over and put him out of his misery. How someone so intelligent could have so much trouble with many of life’s basics remained a mystery to him.

“Alright I’ll take it from here. Don’t strain yourself,” he said, laughing. Sherlock however seemed a little stung and did not smile, handing over the bin liners with more force than was really necessary, so John decided not to mention the light smell of cigarette smoke.

“Fine. No doubt you have some system in place for all of these things that I am not privy to. How you retain the mental space for it is quite frankly beyond my comprehension,” Sherlock said in as haughty a tone as he possessed.

“Says the man with a sock index!” John said fondly, not affected in the slightest. “Anyway thanks for doing the shopping, for once. Not as impossible as you thought, eh?” Sherlock gave a non-committal hum then whirled away to hang up his coat in the hall. “We could even take turns!” John suggested, loudly, though he doubted this would be met with anything less than derision. Sherlock reappeared at the kitchen door.

“Why don’t we just get things delivered?” He said. John gave him a side-glance and grimaced. Sherlock could seriously be the laziest person he knew sometimes.

“How’d you mean?” Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“I mean we can surely set up an account at one of the supermarkets and have the necessary items delivered each week – then neither of us has to go through this tedious rigmarole.” He was still employing the aloof and haughty tone, and he was looking closely at his nails as if the matter did not really interest him, but John sensed an undercurrent of… something…

“More expensive though.” John said, moving now to start cutting open a pack of bacon (of which Sherlock had bought 8 packs?).

“I am more than happy to pay the extra fees.” Sherlock said. While John knew that was absolutely true, he still felt very uncomfortable whenever Sherlock was so flippant about money. The shops were literally a ten minute walk away, seven if you were in a hurry, and John’s frugal upbringing balked at the idea of paying someone to make the walk for him.

“Thanks Sherlock, but no. We need to get out of the house sometimes for something other than cases. I’ll do it next week anyway – as long as you don’t throw any of my stuff away between now and then!” He waved the spatula at him mock-threateningly as the heavenly smell of frying bacon started to fill the air.

“As you wish,” said Sherlock, his nose wrinkling and already beating a retreat to his room.

“You want a bacon sandwich?” John called after him. The closing of the door was the only answer he got.

********************************

Sherlock had purloined his laptop for far longer than the agreed hour, but just as John was working himself up over it he had moved off to the kitchen table and was now engrossed in his eyebrow experiment. John winced internally at the mere idea of this, but it was at least going to keep the other man occupied. A couple of hours passed in relative calm and John was really starting to enjoy his lazy day, when there were footsteps on the stairs quickly followed by a hammering at their door.

“Lestrade,” pronounced Sherlock, not even looking up from his microscope. John huffed but got up and opened the door.

“Hi Greg, come in.”

“John, Sherlock,” he said a bit breathlessly. Never one to hide how he was feeling, John could see that the inspector was rather frantic about something. His eyes were a little wide and his clothes a little more ruffled than usual. John reacted to these small signs as most Englishmen would.

“Would you like a cuppa?” he asked.

“Ah, no. No not just now. Actually I was hoping you two would come out and look at a scene.” He looked hopefully towards the kitchen table, where Sherlock had still barely moved, nor acknowledged his presence inside the flat. “Sherlock?” This elicited a deep sigh.

“Really Lestrade, we just closed a case last night. Is there nothing your department can do without us?” Lestrade narrowed his eyes at that.

“Two weeks ago you were begging me for cold cases, now you don’t even want to hear about a current one?”

“Two weeks ago I was bored, but now I am about to solve the most interesting of your cold cases. I simply do not wish to be dragged away for anything less interesting, when you have an entire department of people at your disposal,” said Sherlock, patiently adjusting the microscope and scribbling something in one of his many notebooks. Though John did not approve of Sherlock’s continued rude treatment of one of their friends, he had to agree. He was still tired from the past two weeks and just wanted a mindless evening.

“Well trust me, this one is definitely interesting.” Sherlock raised a skeptical eyebrow, still not looking up. Lestrade turned back to John. “I could do with another medical opinion too if you want the truth. Really grisly stuff, this.” Intrigued despite himself and pleased at the notion that he was useful in his own right, John gestured to the couch and for Lestrade to continue. “Two bodies, same location. From what we can tell, one was dumped approximately one week before the other. They were buried in shallow graves on public land, a dog walker found them this morning.”

“Dull,” came a pronouncement from the direction of the kitchen. Lestrade scowled then refocused on John when he asked,

“Any apparent cause of death?” The week-long break in between the two murders was something, but John wasn’t sure why Lestrade would need them for this case. Despite what Sherlock said, the Yarders did manage to solve plenty of ‘normal’ murders on their own.

“Well now that’s where it gets interesting. The only marks on their bodies that we’ve seen so far are on the wrists, ankles and necks indicating restraints, no other obviously fatal wounds to the bodies. But…” he hesitated, swallowing, the wide-eyed look having returned.

“But…?” John encouraged.

“Their heads. Half of their heads are missing. Looks like sawn right off, and the brains are gone too.” John felt his own eyes widen at the revolting thought, just as Sherlock appeared at the kitchen door.

“Excellent!” he pronounced, literally rubbing his hands together, broad grin on his face. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place!”

“Sherlock,” John and Lestrade groaned almost in unison.

“A serial killer! A trophy hunter! Medical malpractice!” Sherlock crowed while striding towards the hall for his coat and scarf.

“Medical malpractice?” Lestrade questioned, also rising. John started to scramble for his own outerwear with a sigh, knowing where this was going. Goodbye, quiet evening.

“Yes! You don’t think everyone just happens to have the tools available to saw the top off of someone’s skull, do you?”

“You do,” John said snarkily, pulling on his shoes. They all headed for the door.

“True,” Sherlock acquiesced as they thundered down the stairs. “However, in contrast to our murderer, I already have more than enough brains for my liking.”

********************

They arrived at the crime scene at around the same time, in separate cars of course. Sherlock had pointed out numerous times that the cologne Lestrade insisted on wearing (metallic purple, ugh) reacted badly with the inspector’s own body chemistry, but all Lestrade (and anyone else in hearing distance) did was scowl at him and so the behavior remained unchanged. Sherlock did not get into enclosed spaces with him if he could help it, lest his every cognitive function be impaired by the coppery itchy smell. John, grumpy already from the bacon fiasco and the loss of his leisure time had ridden with Lestrade, pronouncing Sherlock ‘ridiculous’ – a pronouncement he made several times a week. John’s positive comments about him (amazing, brilliant and the like) though not as frequent, far outweighed the negatives – the balance was further towards positive as those meant a lot more - but there was still a small part of Sherlock that mourned his own lack of ability to properly communicate his thoughts to people. Wanting to avoid scratching his own skin off due to the smell inside Lestrade’s car didn’t seem that ridiculous to him. He got out of his taxi, crossed the barrier and noted the tire marks on the curbside.

“Hello, freak.” Donovan’s familiar whine (nasal, indicative of a deviated septum, comments to that affect upon first meeting were soundly ignored) while not unexpected was still irksome.

“Donovan. I’m surprised you can stomach a scene like this what with the state of your hangover. How many times did you vomit this morning?”

“Sherlock.” Statement. Exasperated. Chiding. John. “Let’s just get to the point. Afternoon, Donovan.” Courteous, however tone slightly frosty. Sherlock’s comment about her hangover was still apparently worse in John’s estimation than Donovan’s name-calling. Sherlock didn’t understand why this should be so, though it came as no surprise. Perhaps she had been saying it so long, it was now socially acceptable? How depressing.

They made their way down a short path leading from the road into a railway siding sparsely populated by young oak trees. Sherlock turned around as they walked, scouting out the closest street lights – too far to provide adequate light from the road during the evening, meaning their killer had dumped his victims under cover of darkness. He also noted the flattening of undergrowth, ferns flattered down the right side of the path, indicating something heavy being dragged, and… “What have you got?” Lestrade asked as he leaned over the underbrush.

“Shoe,” noted Sherlock, gesturing.

“What? Where?” said Lestrade. Sherlock resisted the urge to sigh with great difficulty. He pulled a pen out his pocket and peeled the ferns back, revealing a black tennis shoe underneath. Lestrade swore under his breath then shouted down the hill, “Anderson! How the hell did you miss that?”

“Miss what?” The indignant response came from between the trees. Sherlock stood up and turned smiling to look for John and his accompanying praise, but it turned out he was further down the path and striding towards the main scene as Anderson, clad in white plastic forensics wear came stomping upwards.

“This,” said Sherlock, gesturing at the hollow he had created in the ferns with his pen. He moved to walk past Anderson and catch up with John.

“We had only done a preliminary sweep. We would have found it later today. We were a bit preoccupied with the actual bodies, you see,” said Anderson, ending with his sing-song tone always modulated for mockery and stepping into his way. Lestrade left them to it with an admonishing look at Anderson, and continued down on to the scene.

“Fine fine,” said Sherlock, wanting to join the others as soon as possible.

“Like a bloody great big bloodhound, you are,” said Donovan from behind him. “And not like he cares about the bodies anyway.” She directed the last around him to Anderson, who was now smiling in his mean, small-eyed way.

“Of course he doesn’t. Probably elated to hear about this. It’s awful, what happened to those people. Disgusting. Doesn’t matter to you though, does it?” His deodorant, which Sherlock had often identified on Donovan as well, rolled off him in dark blue waves as he felt he gained the upper hand. However, Sherlock still had the literal higher ground, and with one swift poke to the right shoulder Anderson swung almost 180 degrees and Sherlock strode past.

“Lovely chatting to you both, as always,” he threw over his shoulder.

“You aren’t even human!” Donovan snarled in response.

He heard them following him back down the hill to the tented crime scene, set back where the path curved sharply to the right to run along next to the train line. John had already almost finished getting into the white plastic gear while Lestrade was getting started. A blue tarpaulin tent covered the area from prying eyes, though no members of the public were around. Sherlock’s only concession was to shuck his coat after retrieving his magnifier, as they were about to be in a confined space together. Early on in their acquaintance, he had made it quite clear to Lestrade that he would not put on the plastic outfit, whether than meant he was banned from scenes or not. The crinkling noise they made was enough to drive him to distraction, not to mention the tight elastic on the wrists and ankles and around the face. It would feel like voluntarily putting on a plastic coffin, and he refused to do it. Bad enough everyone else put them on, and their oily grey smell was everywhere. He would have to get up close to any corpse they were near to be able to smell anything useful. Annoying.

John went into the tent first, only pausing for a second as he no doubt took in a grisly sight. Next went Anderson, Lestrade and finally Sherlock. John was already crouching down next to the two bodies, both of which were laying in shallow graves. One had clearly been there longer than the other, even though most of the scavenging creatures working on its decomposition had presumably been removed already by the forensics team. The others all made a show of covering their noses, but Sherlock didn’t mind this smell. It was earthy, dark green, deep, natural. Not what he would call pleasant, but far better than the scratchy chemical smells surrounding most people. He himself only used products that comprised of natural smells (poncy and posh according to John, probably due to the higher cost) yet most of the population insisted on dousing themselves in the most awful and glaring cacophony of manufactured aromas.

John crouched down and gently lifted the arm of the freshest corpse, no doubt noting for himself the marks Lestrade had mentioned on the wrist. Sherlock moved to the head, looking closely at the shearing marks in the bone, and the detritus that was left in place of a brain in the partial skull. The backs of the skulls had been removed just above the ears, sloping backwards, leaving the foreheads and faces intact. In fact viewed from a certain angle (he moved around, craning his head), you would not know that the skulls had been removed at all. The bruising to the neck was deep and wide but the skin had not been broken. John was moving towards him, and they exchanged places without need for communication. Both were fully clothed (minus the shoe he had found earlier), one male in his forties and one female in her twenties. He looked at the marks on the female’s ankle, still identifiable. Not ropes, no. Zip ties. Multiple, on each limb. The thin plastic had cut into the flesh as she struggled. So, she had been alive for some time while restrained – enough to build up the adrenalin that would nullify the pain made by the ties.

“Well?” Anderson said suddenly, breaking the intense quiet. John glared at him from where he had been closely examining the second corpse’s head. “Unless you have something helpful to add, we would like to start cleaning up the scene while there is still some daylight left.”

“What do you have so far?” asked John standing up. Sherlock took a swift last look over the bodies and moved outside, the others following after him. Donovan joined the group again while Anderson launched into his explanation.

“Both in their thirties, the woman was buried here approximately one week ago, the man approximately two days ago. Skulls fragments removed with a circular saw, possibly of a type used in home improvements. They were alive when the marks on their ankles, wrists and necks were made, but dead when the skulls were sawed, thank god.” Sherlock glanced around as there appeared to be a susurrus of agreement with this from the others. As if not being awake while someone cut your skull in two was something to be grateful for – though all the evidence said otherwise, at least to him.

“Gruesome,” remarked Lestrade with a noticeable shudder. “So Sherlock, got anything for us?”

“Yes. You are correct that a circular saw was used to remove the tops of the skulls, but it was a medical grade saw – there is still dust in what is left of the woman’s hair, too fine a grade to have been made with a layman’s tool. The killer has access to medical tools but limited knowledge: the brains were removed without precision, so though this person has knowledge of human anatomy he has not had much practice of practical application. They are not both in their thirties, at least a decade separates them according to their sartorial choices, though post-mortem will give us a better idea of their ages.” Anderson crossed him arms at this petulantly, but John made a rueful smile. “Next, though you are correct that they were both dead by the time the killer was taking apart their skulls, it is not a cause for bleak celebration. They suffered. The bruising around the necks and injuries to the wrists and ankles indicate that they were both in a great amount of pain before they died: the man almost strangled himself trying to escape whatever was happening, and the woman cut one of her wrists down to the bone, an injury that would have most certainly caused her death. The killer learned from that – he used zip ties on the woman, but a week later he used wide ropes on the man. Whatever he was doing to them, it was painful and he wanted it to last as long as possible.” He paused, wondering if John would say anything, but he looked pale and lost in thought. Sherlock continued, “You are looking for someone who is working in a medical-related field such as mortuary work or funeral assistant. The most recent body was left here during hours of total darkness, as the killer did not notice one shoe was missing. They are physically strong and left handed – they dragged the bodies down the right side of the path, walking backwards, relying on their dominant left hand.” Lestrade looked grudgingly impressed at that. “Finally, they drive a blue Fiat Ducato with alloy wheels and they are a nervous driver.”

“Oh come on!” Donovan exclaimed. “How in the hell could you possibly know that?” Sherlock smirked, pleased with her reaction.

“The curbside on the road: there are tire marks and chips of paint. The curb is much higher than usual due to the slope of the hill. The killer drove the van, the respective bodies in the back, as close to the footpath as possible but due to the curve of the road and the height of the curb they clipped it, leaving tire marks, scratching their wheel job and chipping the low long side of his van. They did it twice, so did not learn from the first experience, so either they are generally a nervous driver or I supposed the presence of the bodies in the van and the prospect of dumping them may have had an effect. The Fiat Ducato has been the most popular model of van on the road which fits the size and specifications indicated by the evidence, since 1981.”

“Brilliant,” said John, with just the right mix of astonishment and awe. Sherlock basked. Finally!

“All quite obvious,” Sherlock demurred, but he knew he had lit up like a Christmas tree. It was a reaction he just couldn’t seem to shake, and had given up trying to quash it. However he dimmed slightly when John jokingly turned to Lestrade and said,

“Knew there was some reason we kept him around,” and they both chuckled. He could feel Donovan watching him so asked,

“Anything to add, John?” “Yes actually. Burns, on both victims. Just under the cuts to the skulls, behind each ear.” John turned and pointed to their position on his own head, then turned back. “Quite severe I would say. Circular. They’re hard to see because of the placement and other damage to each head, but they are there.”

“Interesting!” Sherlock exclaimed.

“Ugh you would say that,” said Anderson, obviously irritated that John had found something on the bodies that he had not. Sherlock ignored him.

“What might have caused these injuries?”

“I dunno really,” said John. Could be a brand, or electricity. Definitely done while they were alive though.” He started to peel off the plastic forensic coveralls.

“Alright thanks John, Sherlock. We’ll get to work on identifying the bodies and I’ll get back to you if we find anything. I expect the same from you, alright?” Lestrade said this with a slightly admonishing tone. Starting to feel a bit put-upon, Sherlock said,

“Certainly, detective inspector,” in an insipid enough tone that everyone present knew he was shamming. “Time to go, John.” John gave his usual long-suffering sigh and they started walking back up the footpath towards the road.

“Why do you always have to rile everyone up?” John asked.

“What would you prefer I do? Make nice?” He used air quotes with his fingers. It wasn’t like anyone in these situations was ever nice to him.

“No, I suppose that’s not going to happen, is it?” John said. Sarcasm. Rhetorical. Disappointed.

Hmm. Perhaps the scale of John's positive-to-negative pronouncements wasn’t as stacked towards the positive as he had previously hoped.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice long one for you. Molly, some new characters, and more of Sherlock and John being idiots. Comments always welcome, enjoy!

The postmortems were scheduled for the following morning, so there was nothing yet to be done until they could go and meet Lestrade and Molly the next afternoon. Sherlock chafed at the lack of activity, so once they were home from the crime scene he picked up his violin and plucked at the strings in agitation. After inhaling some Thai delivery (which John had unsuccessfully tried to cajole Sherlock into sampling – as a case had begun he had no operating space available to deal with the mix of red and orange smells, the tastes, the textures…), John settled in on the couch with his laptop, looking relaxed aside from the telltale lines of tension around his mouth. Unhappy. Over-wrought. Disturbed? He had seemed to give little reaction to the state of the bodies at the scene, but Sherlock knew that his true feelings on the matter were only likely to come to light once they were away from public view. That was the soldier in John, perhaps the doctor as well – keep calm, get through the incident, react later. As ever, Sherlock was unsure if it was better to draw out the other man or leave him to it. Undecided, he continued randomly plucking the strings and began storing the facts of the case away in a new file in the office of his mind palace. 

“Do you have to keep doing that?” John asked, sounding tired.

“Doing what?” Sherlock blinked back to the present.

“The violin, Sherlock. I’m trying to read.” John gestured at the instrument Sherlock was holding, his hands operating over the strings without much conscious thought. John was annoyed. Again. Part of Sherlock wanted to snarl something at him, probably start an argument, because he was sick of always being ‘wrong’. Stop plucking the violin, Sherlock. Get in the car, Sherlock. Eat more, Sherlock. You said the wrong thing again, Sherlock. 

However a larger part, the part that had been cultivated over many years of effort and study, knew that it wasn’t John who didn’t know how to be ‘normal’. It wasn’t John who was mis-stepping. It wasn’t John who people looked at askance every time he opened his mouth. 

It wasn’t John who was called a freak. 

He huffed in agitation to keep up appearances, but put the violin carefully away. Unfortunately without the outlet for his bubbling energy, he was going to need something else to do. He didn’t think now was a good time to try to wrest John’s laptop from him, and his own really was malfunctioning. He would need to go out and get a new one soon, and wasn’t that a bleak thought. The people working in those places were always so chatty, having been trained that their incessant mock-friendliness would lead to sales. Last time he had bought a computer he had managed to make the purchase but then been told by the manager not to return – it was probably due to the crying saleswoman. 

He really needed to sort himself out a personal shopper. 

He walked to the bookshelf and scanned the titles, fingers tapping restlessly against his thighs. He shifted his weight from foot to foot while he looked for his books on human anatomy, intending to refresh his knowledge of the skull. He had deleted that file in his mind palace as he had easy access to the book, and no matter what John thought, space actually was limited. It wasn’t like he could hold the sum of human knowledge in his head all at once. Things had to be prioritized, which was why he genuinely did not understand how other people seemed to remember the most trivial, unimportant things. Where were they getting the memory space?

“Sherlock, please. Find something to do. Your twitching is driving me crazy!” John rubbed a hand over his face. “We can’t do anything constructive until tomorrow, so watch some telly or something!”

“John, you know I don’t enjoy ‘the telly’,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “It’s mostly drivel. The stories presented don’t make any sense, the sound is annoying, even the factual programs are couched in the most banal language with flashing imagery… where are you going?” John had stood up resolutely, holding his laptop. 

“I’m going to go to bed, Sherlock.” He didn’t look at him, and headed towards the door. 

“But… the case!” Sherlock spluttered slightly, surprised. “The game is on!”

John did stop and turn around at that. “No Sherlock. This isn’t a game. Those people were tortured, you said it yourself. They were in pain. And there’s a lunatic out there literally collecting people’s brains! This isn’t fun, it’s horrific!” He had walked closer to Sherlock as he said it, one hand raised, looking for a moment like he was going to jab Sherlock in the chest with it.  
“John, I know that the particulars of this case are rather more unusual than most, but…”

“Unusual! Unusual. Yes I’d say so.” John sounded defeated and rubbed his hand over his face again, like he was willing himself to relax. “OK. Look… Never mind. I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day, after a couple of long weeks, and I’m just going to go look at some stupid stuff on the internet and then go to bed. There’s nothing you can do tonight, OK? I’ll see you in the morning.”

“But, John…”

“Goodnight, Sherlock,” John said with some finality and headed up the stairs. Sherlock watched him go, the acidic feeling of the morning back in his stomach. He looked around the empty room, his gaze landing on the clock. Only just after 9pm. He noticed his fingers tapping absently on his thighs again and forced his hands into his pockets to stop them. 

***********************

The next morning Sherlock did his best to stay out of John’s way. Overnight after filing away all the details of the case, he had spent some time reconsidering their interactions – first for the past few days and then the past few weeks, and what he had found was troubling. Things about their working and social relationship that John had previously found acceptable (or even perhaps, endearing?) were now a source of annoyance. He didn’t praise Sherlock’s deductive skills as often or as strongly. He didn’t seem to really be enjoying the work as much as he used to. In their first year of cases the thrill of the chase, the narrowing-down of suspects, bringing criminals to justice and perhaps even saving future victims had all brought a glint to his eye, a healthy flush to his face, and that aura of satisfaction lasted for days after a case ended. Now it was still there, but lost much faster. He seemed more occupied with Sherlock’s lack of social graces than before, perhaps taking them as a reflection upon himself as they were known to be flat mates and friends. He made more asides to Lestrade that poked fun at Sherlock’s ‘antics’ as they called them. 

He was, ever so slightly, edging further towards the line that separated ‘us’ from ‘them’. 

“Caring is not an advantage”, came an echo of Mycroft from within his mind. If there was one thing Sherlock detested more than anything in the world, it was when his brother was right. However this adage had been proven to him time and time again, as he put his faith in the wrong people. Sherlock was not ‘right’ as far as other people were concerned. He thought John was an exception as he originally reveled in Sherlock’s oddities, but it seemed that might be a temporary state. The shine was wearing off, and soon his deductive abilities were not going to be enough to distract from… well, who he was as a person. And he did care for John. He had tried not to – tried very hard – but ever since the pool, a seedling of sentiment, small but extremely hardy, had sprouted from the fireplace in the living room of his mind palace. It had proven impossible to eradicate, growing stronger and spreading branches that now reached hallway across the room, casting a faint green light over the two chairs where he spent so much of his time.

So, he could not stop caring, and his behavior was apparently unacceptable to John, so he was left with two choices – put more effort into his study of human interaction than he had in quite some time and try to emulate it (more than merely copying phrases he had heard John use), or retreat. This morning he chose retreat and kept to his room, though he knew he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely. He would have to start trying harder, and soon. Even thinking about it made him feel tired. People, in general, made him feel tired. 

There was a third option… but it was forbidden. 7% forbidden, to be exact. It really was a shame, for when he allowed himself to indulge in his bad habit, for the first few days people didn’t even notice. In fact, they seemed happy that he was suddenly easier to get along with. Not so erratic. Clearer in thought and communication. More ‘normal’. Sadly they did not agree with him that the benefits outweighed the cost, and Lestrade, Mycroft and his parents had made it very clear that any further use would provoke serious repercussion that he did not want to explore. 

Thankfully ‘retreat’ seemed to be good enough for the current morning, as when they met up at noon to leave for the morgue at Bart’s, John’s mood seemed marginally improved. Sherlock came out of his room, gestured at the door, and John smiled and joined him in donning their coats. He kept his mouth shut as he flagged down a cab, opening the door and allowing John to get in first. 

“Got any theories yet?” John asked affably as the taxi departed. 

“Several, though without further data it is currently impossible to narrow it down,” he replied, careful to keep his tone on the lighter side of neutral. 

“Hopefully Molly will have something for us then,” said John. Sherlock nodded, turning his head to look out of the window to curtail further conversation where he might make some unforeseen error. After a few minutes, John continued, “The sooner we can catch this one, the better. The whole thing creeps me out.” 

Usually such a statement would have Sherlock probing further – what exactly was meant by ‘creeps me out’, what about this case differentiated it from previous gory cases, how was John identifying the ‘creepy’ feeling in himself… But he knew this was not what other people would say, so he didn’t. He hummed non-committally, which was his go-to noise when he knew what NOT to say, but not what TO say. John apparently took this as a signal to continue.

“I mean… taking their brains. Where is he keeping them? And what for? Ugh actually I’m not sure I want to know.” There was a pause and Sherlock hummed again. “Sherlock? Are you even listening to me?” And there it was – annoyance. Irritation. Exasperation. John. 

“Yes. You think the case is creepy and are concerned about the location and storage of the missing brains.”

“No, not… I’m not concerned how he is storing them, I’m grossed-out! He could have the best ‘stolen brain storage’ system on the planet, but that’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point?” Sherlock asked, genuinely confused, then cursed his lack of restraint as John’s face fell. He blinked at him, opened his mouth to reply, then apparently thought it wasn’t worth it and turned to look out of the opposite window. 

The rest of the ride passed in silence but thankfully they were at Bart’s quickly. They went inside and down to the basement where Lestrade and Molly were already waiting for them, the two corpses now laid out on gurneys, cleaned with only a sheet protecting the modesty of each. A strange custom, afforded to the dead who no longer needed it. 

Though John might call it ‘creepy’, Sherlock privately loved the morgue. He loved the clean lines, muted color scheme, low temperature, low lighting, the quiet voices people adopted in there, and the mottled silvery smell of formaldehyde that curled around every edge and corner. It was one of his favorite smells as it so completely dulled almost everything else it came into contact with. He took a deep breath, noticing the frowns this earned, but it really was simply the best smell he knew.

“Hi Sherlock,” piped Molly. He liked Molly too. Not as much as she wanted him to, but she was an unassuming (in both senses of the word) and understanding soul. She never told him off for fidgeting, or not talking, or for saying the wrong thing when he did talk (though in some instances she probably should have). She just let him be. When she came up to the lab he habitually haunted, she brought the smell of formaldehyde with her, and her own rose pink smell flowed from the top of her head like a fountain to complement it. 

He liked her a lot. 

“Hello Molly. Anything interesting for us?” She smiled, a faint blush in her cheeks, and he found he could smile easily in return. 

“Actually yes, a few things. You were right that a bone saw made the cuts into the skull, and plastic zip ties the wounds on the woman’s wrists and ankles. There was a fiber on the man’s throat – hempex.”

“Synthetic hemp rope commonly used in boating,” Sherlock supplied. 

“Oh OK,” Molly stuttered, thrown slightly. “Um, so the rope was wrapped around both their necks twice, and around the man’s wrists twice too. It was a wide rope, so hard to tie in a knot.”  
“Looking for someone strong then,” said John. 

“Yes very strong,” she agreed. She stood between the two corpses. “The man is in his early forties, no fatal injuries aside from the obvious,” she gestured at his head, “but he has calluses on his fingers indicating he uses tools or machinery a lot.” Sherlock nodded in approval, eyes sweeping towards the corpse’s hands. “His head was shaved, recently, it nicked the back of his neck. The woman’s hair was cut in a hurry, but not shaved. Oh and she’s younger, late twenties.”

“What about the burn marks?” John asked.

“Um yes… it’s hard to tell what might have caused them, but they are full-thickness third degree burns – they go right down to the bone.”

“Well what might have caused them?” asked Lestrade, sounding a little impatient. 

“Exposure to hot metal for an extended amount of time, flames from a fire, an electrical source… it wasn’t a chemical, there would have been traces of that,” she replied. “Speaking of chemicals though, I did find Gadolinium in the woman’s intestinal tract.”

“Contrast medium,” said John. 

“Yes,” agreed Molly. “Yes Gadolinium is used when people get an MRI to give a clearer result on the images,” she explained for Lestrade. “But I couldn’t find any condition during the autopsy that would necessitate her needing an MRI.”

“Unless, the reason is missing?” suggested Sherlock, eyes flicking towards the head. 

“Yes exactly. She might have had something in her brain they were looking at – cancer, an aneurism, a shadow, and that’s why she went for the MRI.”

“Right,” said Lestrade, eyes also straying to the empty head. “Right. Well we have a couple of possibilities for her coming up through missing persons, I’ll see if any of them went for an MRI recently. How recently?”

“Oh, only a day or two before her death, so I’d say within the last two weeks,” said Molly. Sherlock was sure she did not know how confident she came across when discussing her work, in total contrast to her usual meek demeanor. “Actually Bart’s has one of the foremost MRI labs in the country you know. They’re doing a lot of interesting work up there.”

“In that case we shall pay them a visit,” remarked Sherlock, turned towards the door. 

“Alright you two can do that, I’ve got to get back to the Yard and look through the missing persons info. Let me know if anything comes up,” said Lestrade. 

“What about him?”asked John, looking at the corpse of the man that Molly started loading back into the cold chamber. “We only know his age and that he works with tools, right?” 

“And he was an academic,” said Sherlock without thinking. All eyes went to him where he was standing holding the door open. 

“Oh? How’s that?” asked Lestrade.

Sherlock had a sudden strange compulsion so step back and make himself smaller. Usually at these moments he preened like a peacock, and he enjoyed it, but the admonishments had been flying thick and fast recently and had apparently filtered down to even his transport. He resisted the urge and held his stance, but his grip tightened on the door. He didn’t feel as confident in his performance as he normally did, though he was absolutely sure he was correct. 

“His clothes – he was wearing a tweed sport coat, custom made with suede elbow patches and pocket – an in-built pocket-protector if you will,” he said, quieter than usual, staring past them towards the corpse that was still laid out. “The calluses on his right hand are indicative of holding a large pen or marker for extended periods of time, though I agree the calluses on his left hand are most likely from hobby tools. The lines around his eyes suggest squinting, so though it is likely he wore glasses they were probably prescribed for reading and he was too busy day-to-day to take them on and off so squinted over them. He is a university lecturer, pursuing a research degree, with some sort of woodworking hobby on the side.” There was stunned quiet.

“Bloody amazing,” said John, breaking the moment. Sherlock chanced a look at him – eyes shining, broad grin, a fond slight head-shake. Unwilling to ruin it, Sherlock kept his answering smile small and quickly looked away again, saying nothing. 

“Yeah that will be very helpful, thank you Sherlock,” Lestrade also sounded very pleased, but Sherlock did not dare look up again and opted instead to leave the room. He heard John and Lestrade thanking Molly for her time and realized he had not done so, making a mental note, ‘must text Molly’. She wouldn’t mind, but he should have remembered to thank her in person. His shoulders drooped slightly at the realization of another small social failure. He wondered at times if it would be better if he just didn’t speak to other people at all. 

*******************

Lestrade said goodbye after securing more promises from John that they would keep each other updated, and left John with photos of the two deceased. Sherlock had already disappeared off to the MRI lab on the second floor, so John made his way up the Victorian stairwell and into the department. He didn’t have a lot of experience in this area – he referred patients for MRIs but had previously little cause to visit the labs himself, and he wasn’t trained to interpret the results. However he was always interested in learning more, and hoped that Sherlock would not intimidate the lab techs before they could explain more about it. John had tried to explain to him numerous times that if he could just employ a little social grace, he could get a lot more information out of people. Sherlock had sniped that what John saw WAS Sherlock employing social graces, and John shuddered to think what he was like when he wasn’t even trying. 

When he arrived at the front desk of the MRI department, Sherlock was already in imperious discussion with one of the staff who was looking at him with a familiar expression of surprised irritation.

“…and so I will need to speak with your technicians immediately. Ah John. Photographs?” He stretched his gloved hand in John’s direction. 

“Yes I have them Sherlock. Hello Miss…?” 

“It’s Sandra,” said the woman, eyeing them both now with thinly veiled mistrust. 

“Sandra,” John repeated, flashing her his most charming smile and coming to lean one arm on the top of the counter top. “Sandra, I see you have met my colleague Sherlock Holmes, the detective.” John knew that Sherlock probably hadn’t bothered to introduce himself as he viewed it as a waste of time and extraneous information. Sandra seemed to reappraise the tall imposing figure, who had strategically withdrawn slightly down the hallway now that John was there to do the talking for him. “My name is John Watson. We are here because we are trying to help the police to catch a very bad person, and we are hoping that you and the techs here might be able to help us.” Sandra’s brow furrowed under her rather voluminous curly red hair. 

“How would we be able to help?” she asked. Sherlock moved to rejoin the conversation, but,

“Ow!” Sherlock yelped involuntarily as all in succession an orderly shoved him to the side to get past while pulling a large industrial floor polisher, Sherlock's foot landed on the attached trailing cable and he lurched sideways hitting his head on the corner of a notice board. “What the blazes, look where you’re going!” he shouted at the orderly while rubbing his own head. It had happened so fast that John was still leaning on the counter. “Is it so very difficult for you to observe when a fellow human being is standing directly in front of you?” he continued, right in the orderly’s personal space, who had turned his face away and was cowering behind his dark brown hair while still holding onto the large machine.

“Hey!” Sandra snapped at Sherlock, coming out from behind the counter. “He didn’t mean to, you don’t have to keep on at him.”

“Of course he meant to, I was standing right there!” Sherlock snapped back, rubbing his forehead again then inspecting his glove for traces of blood. There was none – he might end up with a bruise and a bump though. 

“Eric it’s OK, you get on now,” Sandra said nicely, one hand on the orderly’s shoulder and stepping between him and Sherlock. The other man, Eric, so far had not said a thing but from what John could see he was now very pale and was avoiding looking at anyone. 

“I demand an apology!” Sherlock said, building up steam for what might turn into a full-on tantrum if John didn’t head him off. 

“Alright Sherlock, let’s calm down, I’m sure it was an accident.” Sherlock looked askance at him, mouth handing open, along with a dramatic expression of betrayal. Eric took the opportunity to move further away down the hall, dragging his heavy equipment through the center of the group.

“You shouldn’t shout at him,” said Sandra sternly. She lowered her voice, “Eric’s autistic, he doesn’t understand why you’re upset.” John’s professionalism bristled slightly at this breach of the man’s confidence, even while he assessed Sherlock’s reaction, who was far from mollified.

“Is he blind as well?” he asked rhetorically, quieter but with just as much venom as before. 

“No!” she said loudly, before remembering herself and lowering her voice. “He has certain ways he has to do his things is all, he is very particular. Try to be a bit more understanding, not everyone is wired the same way you know.” 

“What I understand is that he shoved me into a wall deliberately!” said Sherlock.

“Perhaps he did, but we can’t hold always hold people to the same standards, can we.” Sherlock snorted at her, turning to John for support, but by that point John just wanted to get back to the matter at hand. 

“Sherlock, you aren’t badly hurt, and you aren’t going to get anywhere – some people really can’t change their behavior and it’s not their fault. Let’s just get back to the case, alright?” Sherlock cocked his head to the side and stared at him for a moment, and John saw his expression go from almost hurt bewilderment to being wiped eerily clean. Sherlock then nodded sharply and crossed his arms over his chest, eyes averted. He must have decided that this particular interaction wasn’t worth his time after all, John mused. Taking a deep breath John tried to regain his equilibrium and smiled his three-continents smile at Sandra again. 

“So, Sandra. Here’s how you might be able to help us…”

****************

Twenty minutes later and Sandra had gone off with the photo of their Jane Doe to check with the three MRI consultants working at Bart’s - perhaps she had been one of their patients. John didn’t think they would get that lucky, but it was worth checking out. Meanwhile she had introduced them to Martin Cheswell, one of the MRI techs, and he had led them to the main MRI machine and adjoined control room. 

“So this is the main MRI,” he said, pointing through the window into the lit room housing the machine. “As you probably know, the contrast medium is injected before the MRI. They lay on the table there, then depending on which area we want to capture they might be put in light restraints, sometimes protective headphones, then the table retracts into the machine and we do the scan.” Though exceedingly polite and helpful so far, John couldn’t help not liking the man. There was something just a little… oily, about him, and not just his slicked back blonde hair. He was an unhealthy looking specimen with cold pale skin, looked like he never went outside. He also seemed to be working far too hard to please them. Well, scratch that – to please Sherlock. 

“What else can I tell you, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, oozing servility. Sherlock had been uncharacteristically silent throughout their introductions (“Oh the famous Mr. Holmes!”) and the following explanation of the MRI, and remained so, only making a small gesture towards John as if it was he who should be asking questions. John wondered if he was still smarting over the incident with the orderly, but come to think about it he had seemed a little off for the past few days. 

“You mentioned restraints?” asked John.

“Yes yes, I’ll show you. Come through.” He used the key card dangling around his neck to open the magnetic lock and they went into the MRI room. “It’s not restraints in the way you’re probably thinking though,” he said, pressing a button that brought the table sliding out from inside the doughnut shape of the machine. “See there?”

There was a curious plastic shape over the head of the table with some of the curves of the human face. It was clear, almost like a half-mask, but the sides extended down to attach to the bed. John tried to see if it was possible for the mask to be replaced with anything like the ropes they knew had been used to restrain the victims. He also noticed Sherlock was a few paces behind him, eyeing the machine with poorly-disguised unease. 

“So the last patient was having a brain scan. The head had to be held completely still, see, so we put the restraint on so they didn’t move. A lot of them move when they hear the noise.” Mr. Cheswell had already paced closer to Sherlock, aiming his comments at him and not John. “Terribly loud noise, you see. And it’s incredibly off-putting, because it doesn’t have a steady… rhythm.” John swore in his head. Here we go, another fan throwing innuendos at Sherlock, as if he would even look twice at any of them. It usually seemed to annoy him far more than it annoyed Sherlock, if Sherlock even noticed in the first place. 

“Yes alright we get it,” he said, smiling but with a hint of steel. Sadly Mr. Cheswell ignored him.

“I find smooth rhythms to be far more pleasant, don’t you?” he asked Sherlock, and Sherlock looked from the machine to him, catching on. 

“I assure you I have little interest in such matters,” said Sherlock, voice dripping with disdain. “Thank you for your time but we must be going. John?” John hurried after him as he went through the heavy metal door into the control room. 

“Oh but you haven’t seen anything yet!” said Mr. Cheswell. “You haven’t even seen the new MRI!” Sherlock stopped, eyes narrowed.

“New MRI?” 

“Yes!” crowed the obsequious man, obviously happy to have some reason to keep them longer. John kept himself firmly planted in between them, hackles raised. He really hated it when people threw themselves at Sherlock like this. They just liked what they saw – they didn’t even know him! Mr. Cheswell flipped a switch and what had previously looked like a pane of dark glass, possibly covering more controls, was revealed to be another much smaller window into another much smaller MRI room. There was also another door, almost hidden by all the lab coats hung up on it. “We don’t get to use it much, more’s the pity,” Cheswell continued. “It’s experimental you see.” He opened the door (also magnetic and just as thick as the first) and led them in – there was barely space as they had to crowd around a metal chair welded directly into the floor. John looked up and around the cramped metal space. Sherlock had put his back flat against the wall, brow furrowed. Cheswell was obviously waiting with baited breath for their questions. 

“But… Where is the MRI machine?” John asked. 

“Haha that’s it you see! We are standing in it!” Cheswell crowed loudly. His voice echoed off the walls of the chamber and John saw Sherlock’s face mimic his own wince. “It’s way faster than the normal MRI. We’re using it to study living brains thinking. We can actually watch your brain, while you think!” 

“How does that even work?” asked John.

“Right well they sit here, you see.” Cheswell sat in the tall chair, so now the window to the control room was to his left and there was a screen in front of him. “We show images on the screen to get them thinking, right, and we turn on the MRI to scan at the same time. This has been done in regular MRIs for a while, measuring the increased or decreased blood oxygen levels in different parts of the brain and translating that into images. This thing though,” he hit the sides of the chair appreciatively, “is 60 times faster! It tracks brain function on a timescale of 100 milliseconds, measuring tissue stiffness.” Of course on the last word he leered at Sherlock, who rolled his eyes and gestured back at the door. “We’re always looking for willing volunteers with interesting thought patterns. We’d love to have you in the chair, Mr. Holmes.” 

“Absolutely not,” said Sherlock, and John couldn’t help smiling at Cheswell’s disappointed expression. 

“It’s completely painless I assure you,” Cheswell answered, rising, but Sherlock was already back in the control room gesturing impatiently for John to join him. “How about you, Dr. Watson? It’ll only take twenty minutes.”

“Ah, no. I don’t think so, thanks.” Sherlock however had paused at that. 

“We would be able to see his brain while he is thinking?” he clarified. John knew he didn’t like to ask obvious questions and so was stalling while he thought about something else. John also knew he didn’t like where this was going. 

“Yes, absolutely,” gushed Cheswell. “And all done in twenty minutes. You can sit here with me while we do the scan,” he said hopefully. 

“Sherlock, no…”

“That would be acceptable,” said Sherlock, sitting on one of the sliding stools. 

“No, it’s not acceptable,” said John. “Because I don’t want to do an MRI.”

“Your new friend Sandra will not be finished gossiping with the MRI consultants about us for at least another twenty minutes. Lestrade still hasn’t got back to us about the missing persons reports, and we could gather some very useful data from this experiment for this and future cases. Unless there is something else you think we should be doing?” Sherlock delivered all of this rapid fire and John had the sudden insight that he was being punished for something. 

“Ugh. Alright fine. I’ll do it. But just twenty minutes.” He didn’t know why he was giving in, mainly that he couldn’t think of a good reason why not to do it. 

“Great! I’ll fire everything up while you change – here you go,” Cheswell handed him a surgical robe, a smug smile on his face, sitting next to Sherlock at the controls. 

“Great,” John echoed, defeated. 

John changed behind a screen in the main room then was told to take a seat on the cold metal chair in the smaller room. The door closed, and he caught Sherlock’s gaze through the window to his left. Sherlock smiled at him, just a small smile, but there was something encouraging in his gaze. John smiled back, feeling a bit better. 

“Alright Mr. Watson...”

“Doctor,” interrupted Sherlock, making John smile wider.

“Um yes, Dr. Watson, I’m going to turn on the screen now if you can just look in front of you.” John did, and an image of a beagle puppy appeared. After a couple of seconds it was replaced by a sunflower, and then a beach scene. Cheesy pleasant images continued to pop up. “All you have to do is watch the screen. You’ll hear the MRI start up, but it is nowhere near as loud as a regular one.”

“Do I need to keep still?” John asked, remembering the mask restraint.

“Not completely, this machine is calibrated to follow your movements. However please do stay in the chair and as still as possible. We are also going to measure your heart rate using infrared.” He heard a hear trate monitor start over the speaker, realizing that was his own heartbeat. “I’m starting the MRI now. We will scan while you are looking at images, then I’ll play some music, and finally I’ll ask you some riddles so we can get some different images. Alright? Just wave your hand if there are any problems.” John nodded then gripped the arm rests, anticipating the noise. “Here we go!”

He needn’t have worried. He could hear a mechanical whirring sound, behind the walls, but it was faint and not off-putting. He tried to concentrate on the images in front of him, having a sudden embarrassing realization that Sherlock was looking at his brain patterns at that very moment. Sherlock could literally see how his mind worked. John was sure he was in for some serious teasing for this and his ‘inferior’ mind. It was difficult to keep from turning his head to look through the window what Sherlock might be up to, and how he was fending off Cheswell, but he remembered his instructions to move as little as possible so stayed still. With effort, he dragged his thoughts back to the screen. Later the images stopped and Cheswell told him to close his eyes and listen to the music. He did so, and that was followed by a few riddles that he was told he didn’t have to answer out loud, just think through in his head. Finally he heard the click of the lock and the door opening.

“Alright Dr. Watson, all done.” Cheswell sounded notably frostier than twenty minutes prior, and John wondered what he had missed. Sherlock was smiling again, so it must have been good. He hurried to change so they could finally get away from this annoying character. When he returned, Sherlock was waiting for him outside the exit of the control room and Cheswell was nowhere to be seen. 

“Gone, has he?” asked John happily. 

“Yes, thank goodness,” said Sherlock, giving a theatrical shudder. John was pleased, there hadn’t been much good-natured banter between them lately. They had both been tired, but he knew he had been harping at Sherlock perhaps more than was necessary. 

“Gathered some interesting data then? What do my thoughts look like? Don’t tell me – string cheese.” Sherlock went to reply but then noted Sandra hurrying towards them down the hallway. 

“Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, there you are. Well you were right,” she said.

“Oh?” said John.

“Yes, your Jane Doe. She had her MRI here. Regular MRI, I mean. I can’t tell you more than that without a warrant I’m afraid…”

“That will be no problem. Scotland Yard will send one of their officers in due course,” said Sherlock, already typing on his phone.

“Thanks very much Sandra, that is really helpful,” said John. Sandra blushed, her cheeks almost matching her hair, though she obviously was still annoyed with Sherlock. John followed Sherlock back towards the staircase. 

“Well that’s a turn up. Our Jane Doe was here, in our St. Bart’s.”

“Yes,” said Sherlock, but he didn’t sound excited, more…wary. “It does seem like quite the coincidence, doesn’t it?” 

“Thought you didn’t believe in coincidences?” John said good naturedly. 

“I don’t.”

They went out on to the street and John was glad of the fresh air on his face, after the MRI labs. 

“So what did my thoughts look like then?” asked John. 

“See for yourself,” said Sherlock, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. John was astonished. There it was, his very own brain, thoughts and all. 


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock smiled internally as he saw John’s delighted reaction to the brain scan. He didn’t have a basis for comparison, but the images were certainly interesting as they showed a distinct difference between the different types of thought process John had been led through during the exam. Sherlock would be happy to bet that the images from John’s scan were far more pleasing than the scans of other, more ordinary people might be. He had kept a copy for himself as well and folded it up into his wallet, not that John needed to know that. It was probably ‘a bit not good’ to carry a secret copy of an experimental brain scan of your flat-mate around... but only John could tell him for sure and he wasn’t about to ask him. They flagged a cab and settled in for the ride back to Baker Street. Sherlock checked his phone, hoping for a response from Lestrade to their new lead, but there was still nothing. 

“What do you think, then?” asked John, still holding the paper and waving it in his direction. The identical copy Sherlock had hidden in his wallet seemed to heat up at the question, though he knew that was a synesthestic reaction and could be ignored. Either that or his pocket was on fire. 

“Interesting,” he said, trying to sound as non-committal as possible. 

“Yeah it is isn’t it? Amazing what they can do with tech now. Wonder what your thoughts would look like next to mine?” John seemed to be prodding for a specific reaction, though Sherlock was distracted by a sudden image of two brains in antique jars on a shelf, marked ‘Sherlock’ and ‘John’ – an unsettling but oddly attractive idea. 

Definitely a bit not good, that. 

“I assume they would look much the same,” he settled for. 

“Oh, come on. You’re always on about your superior brain and higher order thinking skills. ‘You see but you do not observe’,” he drawled in a private school accent obviously meant to mimic Sherlock. Sherlock chuckled despite himself and John smiled, triumphant. 

“Hmm yes. Unfortunately thought I doubt even this new MRI can pick up the subtle differences between my way of thinking and yours. It’s all still the same mechanics, after all,” he mused. Privately he hoped there was no visible difference, not that he ever intended to find out. He didn’t need yet another anomaly distinguishing him from his fellow humans – they had identified quite enough already without the aid of fancy new MRI machines, and very few of those had been cast in a positive light. 

“Alright it might be the same mechanics, but it’s like comparing a Ford to a Ferrari, innit?” said John, finally folding the paper and slipping it into his pocket. He didn’t sound put-out, more that he was stating one of life’s more interesting facts. Sherlock relaxed slightly at this proof that he still, at least in some ways, remained high in John’s estimation. 

“Perhaps,” he allowed with a slight smirk. 

“Git,” said John, full of affection. They both laughed, and Sherlock found himself wishing the cab ride would last a little longer and preserve the easy camaraderie that had been missing from their interactions recently. Then his phone started ringing – Lestrade. John watched, interested and concerned as he answered, because Lestrade knew that Sherlock preferred to text and would not call unless it was important. 

“Yes?” Sherlock answered. “Did you get the warrant for Bart’s?”

“Sherlock. We expanded the scene at the railway siding. And we found another body, same MO but it’s been there longer.” Lestrade’s voice was strained, and he paused as if reluctant to continue. 

“Go on,” Sherlock nudged.

“Well… it’s a kid, Sherlock. A young kid. Skull cut the same way, but as for the rest, the burns and that, I don’t think we’ll be able to tell. It’s a right mess, they were left in a plastic bag before being buried, there’s not much left but… well, muck and bones.” Sherlock gazed at John who was watching his face, unable to hear the call. Sherlock tried to keep his expression neutral, but John still blanched at whatever he saw there. 

“Are you still there now?” he asked the inspector.

“Yeah but I’m leaving to work on getting that warrant. Can you and John come down and have a look at this body before we send it on to Bart’s?”

“Yes, we will be there in a half hour,” said Sherlock, tapping the driver on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Thanks Sherlock. We need to find this one, fast.” Sherlock hummed then hung up, giving the driver the new address then settled back in his seat. He sandwiched his hands between his knees to stop them tapping before turning back to John, but John beat him to it.

“Another one then. Something different?” he asked, full of trepidation.

“Yes. An older body, but younger victim. Disposal was slightly different too, this one was in a bag.” He made sure his tone was as informative and neutral as possible. Heaven knows what John’s reaction would be if he thought Sherlock was in the least bit excited to be able to scout for more clues under these circumstances. 

“How much younger?” asked John, seizing the point immediately.

“Uncertain. Lestrade described them as ‘a young kid’,” he supplied slowly, knowing the detrimental effect this was going to have and wishing to shield John from it.

“Jesus,” John said in an exhale. He turned away then, staring unseeing out of the window. Sherlock thought it best to leave him to his thoughts. 

*********************

When they arrived back at the scene night had fallen. Large spotlights had been erected along the footpath and there was more of a visible uniformed police presence. It created something of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario, as there had now gathered a small crowd of interested onlookers. Sherlock sighed to himself as he recognized some of London’s less-than-savory journalists among the rabble. 

“Oh, perfect,” sighed John, who was also obviously displeased with this development. “Look, I’ll distract them for a few minutes while you get through, alright? You just push on through to the scene and I’ll join you.” Sherlock experienced a rush of gratitude: John knew him so well, knew that for whatever reason Sherlock found it very hard to deal with crowds all talking at once, knew that he didn’t know how to answer questions diplomatically or cast himself in a positive light, and knew that he, John, could lighten the burdens of these deficiencies for him. It was moments like this that Sherlock wished he could properly explain to John how astonished he was that someone like him wished to remain in his life, despite all the hardships and darkness that came along with it. He didn’t trust himself not to blurt out something ridiculously sentimental, so instead he nodded soberly then followed John out of the car. 

The cacophony created by the crowd quickly faded as he charged through, eyes down, not pausing to see what happened to John, but thankfully no one called after him as he headed down the footpath towards a new crime scene tent set further into the trees than the previous one. Donavan was once again stationed outside, but she didn’t say anything to him merely glared and folded her arms in front of her at his approach. She gestured towards the glowing tent with her chin. 

The deep green smell was now modulated with greasy black decay and putrification, though Sherlock did not feel the need to cover his nose. His brain had developed a lot of unusual coping mechanisms to deal with the constant and infinite amount of data he was exposed to on a daily basis, one of which was converting most smells into colors and textures. Smell was just another thread in the tapestry that flowed in front of his eyes in his every waking moment, and though he had his likes and dislikes (he abhorred anything itchy and most chemicals, formaldehyde being the notable exception), as they presented themselves visually he could easily discount them. 

Anderson, back in his white plastic, mask over his face, was inside the tent along with a tall unknown assistant. All Sherlock could see of him in his protective garb was his dark skin and fierce brown eyes. His posture and upper facial expression screamed that Sherlock was unwelcome, though he didn’t utter a word while deferring to Anderson. 

“Don’t contaminate my scene, Sherlock,” was all he got in way of greeting. Sherlock merely made an aloof nod, then began his evaluation. 

Thin black plastic garbage bag, cut (presumably by Anderson) but also broken in places. Victim approximately four feet tall, therefore around eight years old. Due to relative thinness of the bones of the skull he would guess female but that would only come out at the autopsy, as most of the flesh, muscle and organs had already decomposed to such a state that little would be learned from them. There was only one arm, but from what he could see of the skeleton that looked to be a birth defect rather than the limb was missing – she had been born with one arm. There were also no clothes, another difference from the later corpses, and one that was bound to disturb both his friend and those from Scotland Yard. 

“Save as much of the gut as you can,” he said to Anderson. “I want to know if she also ingested gadolinium recently.”

“I know how to do my job, thanks,” snapped Anderson. “Anyway our John Doe didn’t have any traces of gadolinium in him, so it’s a moot point anyway.”

“It is hardly moot if we can make a clear link between two out of our three victims, is it?” Sherlock said, shaking his head and exiting the tent. Without the clothes and with the state of the body there was little he could learn. Anderson and his assistant followed him out, pulling off their masks while Donovan joined them.

“Alright great, thanks for that. Is that all you’ve got, Holmes?”

“For now, yes. She will be much easier than the others to identify at least,” he mused.

“What? Why?” asked Assistant. He had a surprisingly deep voice and was obviously trying to appear intimidating. 

“She’s a child with one arm,” Sherlock said slowly, wondering why he would have to explain it.

“Yeah we noticed that part,” said Donovan. “I’m amazed that you did though. I thought dead bodies were pretty much all the same to you – bit of fun.” Sherlock ignored that ridiculous statement and clarified,

“Missing children cause much more of a stir than missing adults. Someone will be looking for her.”

“God, what is wrong with you?” said Assistant, exasperated, walking away shaking his head. 

“You get used to it,” Donovan called after him, smugly. “He’s right though. There’s something wrong in your head,” she said turning back to Sherlock. 

“Why? Am I wrong?” he said, turning away. “You think no one is looking for this girl?” He injected enough scorn into his voice it would have made most people back down, but not Donovan and Anderson. They followed him back to the footpath, and he saw John finally making his way down.

“No you’re probably right,” said Anderson. “Fair enough, you usually are. But normal people don’t think things like that. They aren’t happy when a victim is a kid because maybe we can identify them faster. They don’t think it’s ‘useful’ that some parents are going to get the worst news of their lives so that the case can continue.”

“Psychopath,” Sally spat, one of her favorite insults.

“Sociopath,” Sherlock rejoined, lengthening his stride.

“No,” said Sally sharply, apparently at the end of some sort of rope. She shocked him by grabbing his sleeve, halting his progress. He couldn’t remember her ever voluntarily touching him before. “You can tell other people that, hell you can even tell yourself that, but I don’t buy it. You lie, you break rules, you bully people, you have a massive ego and you hardly have any friends. You’re a proper psycho, and why some people,” she paused and looked meaningfully behind him, no doubt at John who he hoped was closing in, “…why some people don’t get it is the real mystery here. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it – you aren’t even human.” He yanked his sleeve from her surprisingly strong grasp just as John came up by his side, hand resting on his opposite elbow.

“Alright Donovan, you’ve said your bit,” he said, and Sherlock felt himself react for the first time to her diatribe, wondering with something like dread how much John had heard.  
“You’re not my boss, Watson,” she said, words sharp as tacks, and turned on her heel to go back to the tent. “And I could say a lot more,” she threw back at them before she disappeared. Anderson smiled sarcastically at them and followed her. Sherlock felt cold looking down the path at his retreating back. Cold both inside and out. Donovan wasn’t teasing, she really did seem to think he was a monster. While she was no Sherlock, she was a trained, respected detective. Was she seeing something in him that other people did not? Was his lack of ‘normal’ reaction to the body of a tortured child really indicative of a lack of basic humanity?

“Ugh, those two.” John’s voice brought him out of his disturbing thoughts. “I should have a word with Lestrade about them.”

“No point,” Sherlock said, still a little numb. He continued walking up the path.

“Yeah you’re probably right,” John said in a commiserating way, still one hand on his elbow. “Want me to check out the body?” 

“Also no point,” he said shortly, unable for the moment to clear the coldness from his thoughts. It was like a chill mist had entered the mind palace through new cracks in the windows. 

“Right, you can fill me in later,” said John, sounding worried. “Lestrade called and said we should come to the Yard. Now I warn you, there’s some right sods in this group up here and Lestrade’s lot seem green as hell and aren’t much use, so we might have a time of it before we can get into a taxi.” He pulled out his phone and dialed the cab company, quickly giving the address and hanging up again. “Five minutes. So we should probably make a start now.” 

“How much do the reporters know?” he asked John. 

“They don’t seem to have any particulars, no one mentioned the skulls, but they do know there are three bodies and one is a child,” said John. Sherlock looked at the gathered group ahead of them, many of whom were already calling his name, knowing that if John Watson was here then Sherlock Holmes was not far behind. He had a sinking feeling of trepidation, knowing that news of a dead child would have emotions running very high – emotions he was ill-equipped to deal with.

“I think it best I stick with no comment,” he said, a slight uplift to the statement, wanting to know what John thought.

“Yes probably best,” John agreed. Sherlock felt something wither slightly within him at the confirmation that John didn’t think he could handle this ‘properly’ either. He was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. On the outside he just nodded, drew himself up and they approached the hoard together.

******************************

John cursed the journalists with every swear-word under the sun in the safety of his head, even while he kept a blank look plastered to his face. Any wrong move and the vultures would be on them, interpreting looks and making up reasons behind them to splash across the front pages. Sherlock was stiff as a post next to him, private school posture being employed for dramatic effect even as he repeated, “no comment” while they made for the main road. He was also pressed up against John’s side, causing John to almost automatically place a hand in the middle of his back to steer them both to freedom. It was hard to even pick out individual questions from the noise:

“Who’s the killer, Mr. Holmes?”

“Any leads, Mr. Holmes?”

“What will the killer do next, Mr. Holmes?”

“How’s the drug habit, Sherlock?”

“Hey!” John shouted, forgetting himself for a moment. “What sort of a question is that?” He couldn’t tell who had asked the offensive question but there were knowing smirks all around at his outburst. He saw the taxi pulling up to the curb ahead of them and pushed Sherlock towards it, who had slowed his pace due to the onslaught. Sherlock did not do well with people at the best of times, though right now John wished he would used his formidable intellect to verbally shred some of these animals to pieces so they would leave them alone. It wouldn’t do though – the scum would get their own back and more in the morning papers. 

“Watching out for the boyfriend then, Dr. Watson?” a man shouted, laughter in his tone. John ground his teeth so hard his jaw hurt, knowing that any answer he gave was going to be twisted far beyond its original meaning. Sherlock was now almost immobile, back completely rigid under his palm. Keep going, Sherlock, he chanted in his mind. Keep going!

“Is the killer going after more children?”

“What ties the victims together?”

“How can people keep themselves safe?”

“What was the state of the body?”

“How did she die?”

“Does the Yard mind that you’re high when you come to their crime scenes?”

John swung around, absolutely livid, looking for the source of the question and a camera flash went off in his face, but now it was Sherlock encouraging him to move forward and not the other way around. 

“Come John,” Sherlock said forcefully, wafting the last of the people out of their way with a toss of his hand. The questions kept coming even as they got into the cab as the reporters tried to get a rise out of Sherlock as they had from John, the driver gawping at the gathered press and onlookers in surprise.

“How do you cope with these crime scenes Sherlock?” one shouted at the car.

“Does it not bother you at all, Mr. Holmes?”

“Don’t you care, Mr. Holmes?”

“Is it nothing to you?”

The cab pulled away and the questions faded in volume. John was breathing hard, staring out the back window as the crowd dwindled from view. When they were out of sight, he turned to Sherlock who was sitting stiffly, fingers pressed so tightly together on his lap that John worried he might break one. He was staring straight ahead at the back of the driver’s head, but John knew he wasn’t seeing it at all. 

*****************************************

When they arrived at Scotland Yard, John was starting to get quite concerned. Sherlock was still distant and silent, holding himself very still almost as to not even create any air currents around him. John had the feeling if he could have gone home to Baker Street to hide in his room, he would have. John knew that Sherlock was not as immune to the world’s nastiness as people seemed to think, though he covered most of his wounds with almost admirable bravado. He followed John out of the car and into the building where they were directed to Lestrade’s office, still withdrawn, and John wondered if it was the nature of the case, the age of the latest victim or something else that was bothering him. He made a mental note to at least try and get some food into him once they got home, but he knew that was likely to go. 

“Sherlock, John,” Lestrade greeted them. He looked worn-out, top button undone and five o’clock shadow in evidence, causing John to wonder how he himself was looking after all the trails of the day. “We didn’t need the warrant after all, we found our Jane Doe from missing persons once we could narrow it down to her visiting Bart’s. Her name was Isabel Frank, she went in for a routine MRI following treatment for a stage one tumor. She was having treatment at Royal London hospital but their MRI machine was down so she was redirected to Bart’s, had the MRI a week before we found her. She never came home from the MRI.”

“Have you spoken to the family?” asked John.

“No, they’re going to come in tomorrow. But I have spoken to Nadia Hussein’s parents. They heard on the radio about the latest body being found and they came straight here this afternoon. Eight years old, one arm, disappeared from school three weeks ago. We’ll see if we can get a formal ID through tissue sampling but I’d say it’s her.” John agreed, mood plummeting. Somehow it was easier to deal with the death of a child when they were nameless. Now she wasn’t just a victim, she was a person. 

“Disappeared from school?” Sherlock queried, speaking up for the first time since he and John had got into the cab. He had his fingers steepled in front of his face and was staring at his fingertips. 

“Well yeah sort of. According to her parents she had behavior problems and was always running out of the classroom. The school just kind of went along with it; they didn’t have counselors or anything in place for those special kinds of kids. She ran off one day, the teacher assumed she was in the playground, so it wasn’t until hours later they realized she was missing.”   
“What other behavior problems did she have, besides leaving the classroom?” Sherlock pushed.

“She couldn’t concentrate, didn’t follow instructions, would throw tantrums if she didn’t get her way. Said the classes were too boring.” Sherlock huffed at that, however his only comment was,

“Well maybe they were.” He tapped his fingers together a few times, then put his hands down and looked at them. “So, three weeks ago our murderer kidnaps Nadia Hussein from her school. She is known to him somehow, and he knows she often leaves the building of her own accord. It is highly unlikely he was just passing by. It’s possible she is tortured, then murdered, and he takes his trophy from her skull. At some point he removes her clothes and shoes.” John’s hands contracted into fists without any conscious thought, and he felt a wave of nausea flow from his stomach to his throat even while rage made his ears ring. Sherlock was looking at him, face still impassive, but there was a softness to the eyes that belied his concern. His gaze flicked to John’s clenched fists and he made an effort to release them, breathing hard through his nose.

“You’re saying ‘he’, but we don’t know for sure yet, right?” asked Lestrade, trying to dispel some of the tension.

“True,” said Sherlock, assuming his prior brusque manner, “but we do know our murderer is physically very strong as they had to do a lot of heavy lifting, and tie knots in wide-gauge rope. I think it’s safe to assume they are male, for now.” Lestrade nodded and made a note, gesturing for Sherlock to go on. “So, he transports Nadia’s body in his blue van to the railway siding, where he wraps her in plastic and buries her. A week later, Isabel Frank is due for her MRI at Royal London but is instead sent to St. Bart’s. She is either kidnapped from the hospital or on her way home. So why did our killer choose her? She was not known to him as Nadia was, unless he followed her to Bart’s…. He tortures Isabel, cuts off her hair, zip ties her to something, burns her neck, and he either kills her or she dies from blood loss from the wrist wound. This has to have been within a day, two at most of the MRI, as there are still traces of contrast medium in her system. He takes his trophy, then drives her body in his blue van to the same quiet railway siding as before and buries her – no plastic this time. Another week goes by and he kidnaps our John Doe, but he is continuing to learn. The killer shaves the victim’s head for some reason rather than merely cutting his hair, binds him with ropes rather than zip ties, tortures him in the same way he did Isabel and possibly Nadia, kills him, removes his brain and again drives the body to dump it with the others. Two days later, a passing dog-walker uncovers the site. Two days have passed since then.”

“So… you’re saying you think he’s on a schedule?” asked John, turning over the bleak possibilities. It was hard listening to Sherlock’s chronological account, as even though he kept the descriptions to a minimum and his voice to a steady informative tone, it was far too easy to imagine these three people meeting their painful ends.

“Yes, he has a schedule,” Sherlock confirmed, “and without knowing what links the victims, or how he is choosing them, we have little hope of preventing the next murder that he is no doubt already planning to commit in the coming days.”

“Anything on the John Doe then?” John asked Lestrade.

“Unfortunately not yet. No one on missing persons matches his description, and as he’s older it’s possible people don’t even know he is missing – they might think he’s away on holiday or something.”

“Send a query to the top London universities. Perhaps one of them is missing a researcher,” suggested Sherlock. 

“Right, yeah will do. You want to be in on the interview with Isabel Frank’s family in the morning?” Sherlock blanched, fidgeting slightly.

“Ah, no. I think not. However, see if you can find out more about her. Her personality, if there was anything unusual about her.”

“Unusual in what way?” asked Lestrade, confused. 

“I’m not sure yet, but there is something different about these victims. Something that calls to our murderer. They… aren’t like other people.” John recognized that look – it was when Sherlock had what anyone else would call ‘a feeling’. A premonition, or his brain was just working so fast that even he couldn’t fully keep up with it. It didn’t happen often but when it did it was almost beautifully eerie. His unusual friend seemed like he had access to realms of thoughts and sources of information that other, lesser, ‘normal’ human beings could never hope to appreciate or understand. John wondered, and not for the first time, how lonely walking those other realms must be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all, hope you are enjoying the ride. There will most likely not be any updates now for 3 weeks as I'm off on holiday, so click that 'bookmark' button. Have no fear, I will not abandon the story :-D Kudos and comments are super encouraging, thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Once their cab arrived back at Baker Street, John had quickly disappeared off to Angelo’s in order to get them some food, though Sherlock had reiterated that he wasn’t going to eat it. He knew John disliked that he wouldn’t eat on cases and would continue trying to force the issue, but that was because John had no idea what it was like to be Sherlock Holmes. While other people seemed to be able to turn their interest in a criminal case on and off, for Sherlock it was a constant background hum, louder than any MRI machine. It demanded attention, hungered for it, and that seemed to be the only kind of hunger Sherlock could sustain at one time without getting physically ill. With data about the case scrolling relentlessly in front of his eyes like a 24 hour newscast, eating a plate of pasta would be the same as eating a length of wide-gauge rope, or the smell of formaldehyde, or the chips of blue paint from a van, or… a dead body. How he could explain that to anyone without ending up in a white rubber room still remained a mystery though, so after a token refusal he allowed John to go on his heroic search for sustenance. John also didn’t know that Sherlock’s bully-filled childhood had ensured he was well-trained at missing meals. Various doctors had told his parents that ‘special’ children often had issues with the textures of food and therefore that explained him being constantly underweight. Sherlock thought the fact his school lunches were consistently stolen between the ages of five and fifteen might have had a bit more to do with it. As a child he had stopped bringing that up when the third adult in a row told him that no, this was not a crime – it was the other children ‘trying to make friends, in their way.’ Having friends had seemed like a rather unpleasant situation to be in at the time.

Thoughts veering towards the morose, Sherlock found himself in front of the mantel, staring at the skull that had resided there the last few years. Having discounted living friends, he had referred to the skull as a kind of friend in the past, and indeed it was: for inside the skull was the small ornate key, that opened the large ornate box, in his hulking ornate dresser, that contained his stash of cocaine and morphine. They were not ornate. They were clean, simple, minimalist to the point of heartbreak. He thought about them fondly – the drugs, the box, the dresser, the key, the skull. He rubbed his thumb over the frontal bone of the skull, as one might caress the forehead of a lover. Even that action made the draining buzz of reality fade slightly – he could see, clear as watching a film, an image of himself turning the skull just so that the key would fall out and feel both light and heavy simultaneously as it hit his palm. There, look, the image-Sherlock was walking calmly to their bedroom, where it opened the heavy dresser doors, moved a stack of detritus aside and revealed the gleaming box barely hidden there. It would lift the box down, which would feel warm to the touch and trace its fingers reverently over the wooden carvings and glimmering abalone designs. It would set the box down on the bed, insert the friendly key and turn it, that soft silken click of the lock opening being one of the most glorious sounds known to man. The image of him, the golem-Sherlock, would smile then and open the box, and step by step complete the ritual that would finally lead it to one shining, heavenly, silent moment of relief. 

But that was not good. 

Sherlock’s hand tightened on the skull, his feet still planted in front of the fireplace, gaze penetrating his still-closed bedroom door, watching the scene play out as it inevitably would. That other version of him would get deliciously high, be so happy, so content, would think vaguely of covering his tracks but be too entranced with that blissful quietness of thought to really do it well. And then John, John with his thinning patience and waning affection, his dimming warmth and diminishing interest, would come back. Listen, there are his footsteps now. He’s coming up the stairs, and what are you going to do now Sherlock? How are you going to explain this? Do you think he’s going to understand? Do you think he’s going to help? Are you honestly that stupid? Too late, that’s him now, look he’s coming through the door and he’s looking for you, he’s got food for you, he thinks there’s still something worthwhile in you, and there you are on your bedroom floor sweating and swooning and smiling at the ceiling and he’s swearing and smashing your beautiful box and throwing your pretty little key and grinding your drugs under his heel and he’s leaving, leaving, leaving…

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock inhaled audibly as he stared at John’s concerned face who had appeared before him. He was really there, two bags of take-out straining their plastic handles, dangling accusingly at his sides. Look at that, look at him trying to fix you, and for what? Useless. John should run while he still can.

Sherlock shook his head quickly, alarmed at the venom in that sneering baritone voice. The voice of condemnation, his very own voice, had not scolded him quite so viciously in a long time. Neither had his imagination taken quite such a realistic and rapid downturn - not since he had cleaned himself up two years prior.

“John,” he managed, and forced a smile onto his face as he dropped his hand from the brow of the skull. He could feel its accusing eyes on him. John frowned at the both of them.

“You OK?” 

“Hmm? Yes. Yes just thinking over the case,” he said, turning away and picking up his violin to mask the sudden twitching of his fingers. He heard John slowly step away towards the kitchen. 

“Yeah? OK… well I got a little of everything. You know Angelo, always trying to feed us up.” Sherlock heard the rustling of the bags as John began unloading the food. He plucked rapidly at the strings, spinning himself around a few times in place before realizing what he was doing. He stopped, leaning over the back of his chair, looking at John who was looking back like he thought calling for reinforcements might be necessary. They both stared at each other for a beat then John raised an eyebrow at his antics and continued unpacking the containers. 

“Nice of him,” said Sherlock, attempting to quell his restless body through sheer force of will. 

“Yes… you know he also mentioned something to me. Something about seeing you in Tesco’s?”

There was a sudden rather musical thumping sound as Sherlock’s beloved violin fell first onto the back of his chair and then onto the rug beneath it. He ducked down behind the chair to retrieve it, cursing the blood rushing to his face that betrayed his embarrassment. 

“Shite is it OK?” asked John, hurrying over. He too crouched down, one hand on the chair and one hand on Sherlock’s back. Sherlock was reminded of earlier that day, how John had steered him through the crowd, how the touch had anchored him, made the world a little bit quieter, a little more… good. He picked up the instrument, thankfully unharmed, and cradled it to his chest for a moment. He looked up at John whose face was so close to his own, so near and yet an eternity away. Was he always going to be so far away? Would he in fact soon be further, retreating from the wrongness that veiled Sherlock as a cold mountain in a storm cloud? 

“It’s fine,” he said softly, unable for once to keep his face schooled as it should be. John’s face stilled in surprise, in remembrance? Blue eyes roved over Sherlock’s face, lingering for a moment on his forehead where he knew there was a bruise forming, then he pulled sharply up and away. 

“Oh. Um… good. You should be careful, yeah? No dropping treasured possessions.” He was back at the table, turned towards the kitchen, the back of his neck flowering red as a rose. Sherlock swallowed around whatever it was that had sealed his throat closed and put his violin safely away in its case. However he was not one to leave a mystery unsolved.

“So what did Angelo say?” he asked, attempting to sound neutral. “About Tesco’s?” Best to get it over with. John did not turn around. There was an infinitesimal pause then,

“He said some old biddies were asking for your autograph and you fended them off. Always wanting attention you, eh?” John smiled over his shoulder and Sherlock smiled back. Neither was fooled. “Right, I’ve done a plate for you with a bit of everything. None of that ‘not hungry’ guff this time.” John gestured to the plate with a stern hand. “You eat up, I need a shower, it’s been a rough one today.” He smiled again that strained smile and left the room, leaving Sherlock standing alone halfway between the offered food on the table, and the silent skull on the mantelpiece.

***************

John leaned on his closed bedroom door with something like relief – the atmosphere in the living room had been some dense, unreadable thing, making the air even in his lungs feel stale and heavy. When he had come back from his trip to Angelo’s he had found Sherlock frozen in place and unreachable. Not a completely unheard of occurrence, but this time his face had seemed almost… stricken. Sherlock was not one to give his emotions much leasehold over his expression, but he had obviously been thinking of something disturbing, or painful. Plus his reaction at the mere mention of the ‘Tesco’s incident’ had convinced John that keeping quiet about what exactly Angelo had told him was the best course to take. 

And what about that? That was another strange story in the past few strange days, of which he had been completely unaware. He remembered with some chagrin basically forcing Sherlock out of the house to go and do the shopping, and that Sherlock had reappeared an hour later, shopping in hand, looking no worse for wear. And yet to hear Angelo talk about it, Sherlock had pretty much been reduced to a quivering wreck on the floor of the freezer aisle.

“He was in a bad way,” Angelo had confided, after asking John how Sherlock was doing and being surprised he hadn’t know anything about it. “Too many things going on at once, you know how he is. Couldn’t shut it off I expect.”

“Sorry, shut what off?” John had asked, feeling like the world’s biggest dunce. 

“You know, the… stuff. Images and smells and sounds and that. Too much going on in a place like that to sort through, innit? He likes it here, doesn’t even have to look at a menu, lights are low, not many tables. Your local Tesco’s well… that’s like throwing an epileptic into a techno rave, yeah?” John had stared at him in mild horror and branded himself ‘world’s worst and most unobservant friend’ to go with his dunce cap, while Angelo started to chuckle. “Don’t beat yourself up, John. He doesn’t talk about it, does he? He’s like a bank vault, that one. Plus when he does talk it’s usually something so snotty you’d think he was the King of England come to mingle with the common muck. Probably on purpose. That’ll be twenty quid.”

John had been thrown by the quick topic change and completely missed that the total should have been closer to fifty. Handing over the notes, he asked, “But… well, what happened? I’ve seen Sherlock in… well ‘loud’ places loads of times, and he’s been fine.”

“Has he?” asked Angelo appraisingly. “And what does ‘fine’ look like, then?” At the serious look on his face, John had stopped to really think about it. What did ‘fine’ mean in relation to his eccentric friend? Acerbic, cutting remarks that drove anyone in the vicinity away and stopped all conversation. Telling people to leave the surrounding area in an imperious tone not to be argued with. Concentrating with almost superhuman focus on one part of a room while completely shutting out the rest. Shouting at people with despair in his voice to stop breathing, stop thinking, to literally turn away because he couldn’t concentrate… An echo of Sherlock’s voice had come then from their first case together: “What’s it like, not being me? It must be so relaxing…” John had grimaced, feeling even more like a total and utter idiot. Angelo patted him on the shoulder and steered him towards the door. “Not to worry John,” he said. “It takes a village to raise a child, and a city to know Sherlock Holmes. We’re all happy you’re along for the ride.”

“Sorry, who’s happy?” John had asked, but Angelo had merely nudged him outside, closed the door in his face, turned the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ and disappeared back into the gloom with an enigmatic smile. 

Now he was here in his room in Baker Street hiding from his jittery roommate who apparently had managed to hide advanced symptoms of … well. Synthesthesia, sensory-processing disorder and over-responsivity, to name a few, from his best friend and doctor! How he kept himself under control most of the time was astounding, and must take a massive amount of both mental and physical effort. Hell, if anyone in the world could hide something like that it would be Sherlock Holmes, but it didn’t stop John from hanging the sign ‘World’s Worst Doctor’ around his neck to go with his other newly-acquired self-admonishments. What a mess! He remembered then that he was supposed to be taking a shower and got himself into his bathrobe. He slunk down the stairs, realizing to his shame that he was hoping to avoid Sherlock. He needn’t have bothered though as both his roommate and the plate of food he had prepared were gone, he assumed to Sherlock’s bedroom. John didn’t mind where he chose to eat, as long as he tried to eat something. Was that a part of the sensory processing disorder? He knew that so-called ‘special’ people sometimes had issues with certain food textures, maybe that explained…

John literally stopped himself short, slamming his hand into the bathroom doorframe. No! He had to stop making assumptions. He felt suddenly furious with himself. He marched into the bathroom and closed the hall door, then stared at the frosted glass one separating him from his flatmate. What kind of a doctor was he, to start diagnosing and judging and deciding what was best for someone, without even consulting them first? A bad one! 

Well no more. “You see but you do not observe,” came Sherlock’s voice from the past. He was right too, all John saw were symptoms and he hadn’t even bothered looking for a cause. He turned on the water and waited for it to heat up. All he was doing was the same as everyone else – making stupid guess after stupid guess. “I never guess,” past-Sherlock said, amused. I know you don’t, John thought wryly, feeling a swell of affection and something like determination as he looked back at the connecting door. 

I know you don’t. 

****************

Once out of the shower and dressed, John checked his phone for messages and was surprised to see two notifications from Mycroft. Sherlock was still nowhere to be seen but all the same John felt oddly guilty communicating in any way with the enigmatic elder Holmes. The first message was a photo, and John sighed in aggravation. It was one of the photos taken earlier that evening at the crime scene. John and Sherlock were walking away from the camera, but John had turned his head around looking absolutely raving furious. He looked like he was about to deck the next person who spoke to him. He even had one hand in a fist which he hadn’t even noticed he had done at the time, though the other hand was firmly on Sherlock’s back. He cringed, realizing he looked every bit the pissed-off boyfriend in protection mode – total Neanderthal. Heaven knows what the headline to go with this photo was going to be. 

The next message simply read: 

Danger night.

John stilled, ice forming in his guts. That hadn’t even crossed his mind for a second, he was such an idiot! When was he going to get his head out of his arse and SEE what was going on around him? The message had been sent ten minutes prior so he quickly typed back one word: checking, hit send then walked to Sherlock’s door. He didn’t hesitate, knocking firmly three times. 

“Sherlock, are you in there?” He rattled the door – locked. No! Every harsh word, every taunt, spoken by both himself and anyone around them seemed to blare out at him all at once, all twisted up with Sherlock’s own deep voice mocking him for his stupidity. 

…Freak… “Your twitching is driving me crazy!”…aren’t even human… “But I don’t like Tesco...”…we hated him… “He doesn’t understand why you’re upset...” …proper psycho…. “I envy you.”…aren’t like other people… “Some people really can’t change their behaviour and it’s not their fault...”…drug habit… “Couldn’t shut it off…”…in a bad way…

“Sherlock!” He shouted again, suddenly feeling frightened like a small child. No no no, he was shaking his head even as he started pounding on the door with an open hand. “Sherlock I swear if you don’t open this door right now I’m breaking it down!” Ominous silence, and John’s fear started transmuting, as it often did, into anger. “You selfish bastard!” he found himself roaring without really understanding why, ramming his good shoulder into the door and forcing it open mindless of the splinters of wood that landed on the floor. Inside… nothing? 

John stood motionless just inside the room, for a moment unable to comprehend that he wasn’t looking at his best friend in life laid out high on the carpet, or even worse, in the midst of an intentional overdose. The adrenaline had nowhere to go and swirled around his body making him nauseous as his brain tried to restart: he took great heaving gasps of air as his eyes darted around the room and then under the bed when he crouched down. Not there! Still gasping, he looked at the huge wooden dresser and staggered over, heaving the double doors open.

“John!” He whirled around to see Sherlock standing looking incredulous by the broken doorway, mouth hanging open, glorious frenetic eyes taking in the splinters, the staggering, the dresser, and the impending size and weight of John as he slammed into him, sending them both crashing onto their knees at the impact.

“My goodness!” John heard Mrs. Hudson say above his head, who he had not even noticed in his surge of completely unstoppable, overwhelming relief. He ignored her, concentrating instead on the bony body he had firmly wrapped up in his trembling arms. Sherlock was completely still and utterly silent, chin sticking into John’s shoulder, arms pinned by John’s straight down at his sides. John screwed his eyes shut, unable to even feel ashamed at his uncharacteristic actions, because Sherlock, mad, eccentric, amazing, vulnerable and ridiculous Sherlock was alive and breathing, and being. He held on a moment longer, then all but shoved Sherlock away and rose to his feet. Sherlock remained kneeling, staring up at him looking utterly lost. John considered shouting some more, demanding to know where he had been (“Obvious,” came that same amused voice), considered deflecting and starting a random conversation with Mrs. Hudson to defuse the tension, considered just walking out of the room and out the door and down the stairs and away, away, away… But Sherlock looked lost, and pale, and unhappy, kneeling down there on the ruined pieces of his bedroom door. Instead he instinctively reached for Sherlock’s tangle of hair and gently moved it away from his forehead, fingertips barely whispering over the harsh bruise forming there. Sherlock did not move a millimeter, though his eyes grew somehow even wider under John's palm. 

“Um…” Mrs. Hudson cleared her throat. I’ll just um… Well I’ve leave the wine on the table, shall I? Goodnight dears.” Neither man moved as she worried herself out. 

John moved his fingertips once more over the bruise before stepping back. Sherlock’s wide eyes followed his every move, soaking in data at such a rate that John fancied he could feel a pull on his skin, like magnets calling. He willed himself to relax, then extended a hand, though Sherlock didn’t even glance at it. 

“Come on, get up. It’s fine.” John said quietly. Not looking entirely convinced, Sherlock gave the hand a doubtful look then took it and allowed John to haul him to his feet and nudge him back into the living room. 

“Are you… OK?” Sherlock asked, a world of hesitance in his tone. John was not surprised. Though Sherlock had not been there to see John’s spectacular rollercoaster of emotion, it had been a truly awful and long day, and now they seemed to be standing on some sort of shifting quicksand of assumptions and accusations. Sherlock, lovely infuriating Sherlock, was not the best person to navigate such a volatile emotional situation as John had created.

“Er… no. No I don’t think so, actually.” He sunk into his chair, body heavy and clumsy. He stared again at the bruise on Sherlock’s head, the bruise he had gotten by being slammed into a wooden notice board at the hospital, the injury he had not complained about even once since John had taken the side of the cleaner instead of his. The mark was raised, and dark purple, and hateful. Sherlock also sat. “I’m sorry about your door,” John offered, though he wasn’t, not really. “I thought something had happened to you.” 

Sherlock considered that, leaning back in his chair. He looked towards the broken door, then back at John. His eyes also flickered towards the mantel, then at the wine Mrs. Hudson had left on the table. His long fingers rippled in a wave-like twitch, before he shifted and clasped them hard in front of his chest.

“I thought Mrs. Hudson could help us with the feast you brought home,” he said. His tone was still off, like he was reading from a script. The ‘how to diffuse your inexplicably upset roommate’ script. “And I can get another door.” He eyed John then, seeking approval. John’s heart stuttered slightly at the thought that he could read Sherlock so easily. John forced a nervous laugh and dragged a hand through his hair, more of the tension draining out of him.

“Christ,” he said ruefully. “I really am sorry,” he said again, this time meaning it. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I do,” said Sherlock with a trace of his usual smug superiority, and the two shared a ghost of smiles since past. “It has been… a day.” 

“Yeah.” John agreed. He thought of cruel words, and sterile hospitals, of ropes and lost children. He thought of Mycroft, a photo, a brother's love. He had to text him back.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said suddenly. The lost look remained, as did the lilt to the voice and the look in the eyes that asked, ‘Is that good, John? Is that what someone good would say?’ John quelled a sudden urge to slink off quietly to his room to cry.

“You’re welcome,” he said instead, and Sherlock’s answering smile could have kept him warm at the height of midnight, under the unfeeling desert stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! As some of you know, I'm British but usually live in China. Off I went on my Chinese New Year holiday to visit my parents, then lo and behold all flights were cancelled and everything has gone a bit pear-shaped. I'm still with my family and cannot yet go back to my home, my job, my stuff, or my friends. However, I'm incredibly thankful to be healthy and safe as not everyone can say the same. Anyway, that's why there's been a wait for this chapter, and most likely will be for the next one. I will not abandon it, it's not my style, so if you don't want to keep checking back then just hit that bookmark-or-whatever-it-is button.  
> How did you like this angsty update then? Let me know in the comments :-D


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock was finding it unusually difficult to pay attention to what Lestrade was saying. It was not now, as it had been on these rare occasions in the past, due to the content, the delivery, or many moons ago what might have been floating around in Sherlock’s bloodstream. No, today it was because an increasingly large part of his inner processing strategies were still attempting (failing) to work through new data as provided by one singular John H. Watson. They were in the incident room at the Yard, somewhat unusually, but it seemed even those employed there who actively hated Sherlock would rather have his help than allow this particular serial killer to continue operating. He wondered if it was because of the torture aspect, or the child... or something he wouldn’t even consider because he thought so differently to the rest of them. Whatever it was, it had resulted in the room being cleared for their morning visit with minimal grumbling and dark looks from the police team. Lestrade was imparting new and important information and John was taking notes, but Sherlock found that it was going automatically to his filing system as if the buffers in his brain just could not possibly cope with anything more at the moment. It had been so ever since the previous evening, when John Watson decided for whatever reason to reach out and trail his fingertips over Sherlock’s forehead – twice! 

To say Sherlock had been stunned to be knocked to the floor in the doorway of his bedroom by his flatmate and friend was something of a giant understatement: for the first time in many years, he had suddenly found himself in an absolute void of input. Everything – sight, sound, smells, colours, textures, every tiny shred of information that usually sliced across his mind like a million gnats made of sandpaper was suddenly gone, because John had literally squeezed them out of him. It had hurt, that ejection of stimuli, but hurt in the way of having a bone re-set; a sudden sharp metallic shock that left him internally reeling, relieved, redeemed. All there had been for a second (or forever, he still wasn’t sure that he was properly living in the present even now, hours later), was... John. Not his smell, not the texture of his jumper, not even the colour of his skin, just... John. If given the skills and knowledge of all the poets, philosophers and lyricists that had ever existed in all the world, even then, in that moment secure in his arms, Sherlock would not have been able to describe the experience as anything but, ‘John’. Human ingenuity and vocabulary was apparently entirely lacking.

When John had shoved him away and risen, staggering back a step as if drunk, Sherlock had been introduced to a disappointment so profound that his foundations had been shaken yet again. His processing power had come back online with a grating roar, scanning over and dismissing Mrs. Hudson with her lilac smell, the sharp pieces of broken wood digging into his knees, his dresser doors that were alarmingly thrown open... and John’s face. The emotions there moved almost too fast even for him, but he caught a few threads of the tangle: relief, anger, embarrassment, alarm, happiness, concern... And then John’s fingers were tracing the bruise on his forehead, and the surrounding building could have fallen down around them without Sherlock’s notice. He could not remember anyone touching him this way – ever. It wasn’t the diagnostic touch of a doctor, the concerned touch of a friend, a misguided pat from a parent, an unwanted advance from a suitor or a painful jab from an enemy. It was... something else. 

And that was the problem, he had no idea. Nothing in Sherlock’s mind palace came even close to helping him to understand, and he had wandered its halls for hours during the night desperately seeking that understanding. When he had walked past the replica of Baker Street’s living room, he had been aghast to find that the supple sapling that had been bathing the armchairs in a soft green light was now a gnarled and tangled oak – beautiful in its way, with its branches and roots twisting and twining throughout the furniture and sundries of the room, but terrifying in its permanency. It had grown around the chairs, roots curling around the metal bars of his green chair and the feet of John’s faded red one like they were an integral part of it. The fireplace had been obliterated entirely, the windows partially obscured, but the green glow as if from a scorching sun high above the canopy remained to illuminate the chaos. The skull was dangling from a branch that had grown through it and lifted it almost out of reach above Sherlock’s head and it looked down reproachfully. The oak felt like an alien presence, not precisely unwelcome but ancient, uncanny and unknowable, and Sherlock had shied away from the room, frightened. 

After their tense conversation in the living room, John had made his excuses and gone to bed, leaving Sherlock alone in this murky new reality. In between forays to the palace, pacing the flat and trying ineffectually to think again of the case, he had heard John occasionally moving around upstairs, apparently getting as much sleep as he was. He had felt a pull that was very hard to ignore towards the stairs leading to John’s room. A compulsion he couldn’t identify, apart from an intense wondering that if John would touch him again in such a way then perhaps the world might go quiet and still once more, or would there be a flood of input too vast and powerful for him to cope with? How terrifying to want something, without even knowing what it was.

Sherlock knew his shortcomings when it came to his understanding of the world and others, but even he knew what an affectionate touch from a close companion could indicate. In the quiet of the night he had allowed himself for an instant to wonder – what might it be like? To become... involved? He knew something about John’s tastes and physical needs based on his dating (and internet) history, and they were as incompatible to his own as if the two of them were of a different species. If John was thinking along these lines as well, then there was no doubt in Sherlock’s considerable mind that John would require more from him than he was able to give, both physically and emotionally. His own inner critic had laughed derisively – look at the state of you after one hug and a touch on the forehead? Pathetic. Why are you even thinking about this? So he had tried to stop.

When he had heard definite sounds indicating that John was going to come down to start his day, he went back into his room then emerged as if he had been there all night. They had both lied to each other, both having slept extremely well in some alternate reality. John had smiled ruefully letting Sherlock know that this shared fiction was OK, and Sherlock had been glad of the table separating them at that moment as it had physically stopped him from flinging himself without reserve across the room towards him, terror be damned.

“I’ve got something here for that bruise,” John had said while proffering a tube across the table. “I’m sorry, I should have thought of it sooner.” Sherlock had taken the tube (arnica, a glance informed him) with some confusion. 

“It’s just a bruise,” he had responded with a questioning lilt. “I don’t have a concussion, you know.” 

“Yeah I know... well I hope not anyway,” John had said, frowning. “I should have checked for that at the time, now you mention it.” Sherlock had waved a hand dismissively, looking more closely at the tube as a distraction. 

“It’s fine, it was my fault,” he had said, then looked up as John sucked in an annoyed breath. 

“No, it wasn’t. That guy should have been watching where he was going.” Sherlock hadn’t known what to say to that. When the incident had happened, both John and the receptionist Sandra had seemed in complete agreement that it had not been the fault of the cleaner, therefore it must have been his. Sherlock had chafed at it, even to the point of steam-rollering over John’s objections to getting the MRI scan, but he had accepted it because John had said so. If he was going to have to start questioning things John said as well as things John did, he was really going to be in trouble. “Anyway,” John interrupted his thoughts with false positivity and indicating the tube, “go and put a thin layer of that on and it should help.” Sherlock had gone dutifully to the bathroom and applied the cream to the bruise, both lamenting and rejoicing that John hadn’t decided to do it himself. He had found himself staring at his reflection as his fingertips glided over it, feeling again disconcerted that such a simple touch could have commanded his focus so utterly. His riotous hair had stuck to the cream on his forehead, and for a second he had toyed with leaving it there and hoping John would reach out again to un-stick it. With a shiver of unease he did it himself, resolutely not looking back in the mirror. How had he been brought so low, and so quickly?

When he had returned, John read aloud a text from Lestrade and it had been time to go back into battle. They had flagged a cab and hastened to the Yard, and Sherlock had tried to study John along the way without being too obvious about it. He hadn’t slept either, but why? Why wasn’t he wearing his habitual aftershave? Why was he ... quieter? Smaller? It was like John was trying to leave as little imprint on his surroundings as possible and there was again that feeling of something uncanny, something both known and unknown, which had Sherlock closing his eyes and turning his face away. Uncanny but again not entirely unwelcome, particularly the omission of the aftershave about which Sherlock had complained so much. With that red grating ginger-rust smell gone, John’s warm grainy umber shone all the stronger. It was a confusing smell, just like its owner. At first it had made Sherlock think of grains of sand in the desert, but that was just his own associations of the man creating bias. It wasn’t golden sand it was... something else. If it had been in any way acceptable to throw one’s head back and scream in frustration in the back of a London cab while a tendril of unseen shining scent curled up to stroke you delicately on the forehead, Sherlock would have done it. He was no wilting wallflower or swooning damsel, but without any seeming action to take he was reduced to stamping on his building anxiety as one would a troublesome insect. 

Now here they were, supposedly immersed in the case, while Sherlock could barely have told Lestrade which way was up if he was asked. John seemed to be having more luck, asking what appeared to be pertinent questions if tone and body language were anything to go by. His hand occasionally wafted in Sherlock’s direction and Sherlock had to suppress a strong desire to step away. Who knew how much more of his palace would be consumed by the ravaging oak if he allowed too much contact with John? What was the best course of action - surrender, retreat, rebuff? He hadn’t been able to decide last night, this morning, or now. What he did know was that if he didn’t start participating in the current conversation soon then John and Lestrade would be both concerned and suspicious – and a suspicious John was even more unpredictable than currently. He needed at least a temporary course of action. He decided then that for now he was just going to have to keep a distance from John. He couldn’t anticipate John’s actions or his own reactions, so for now it was better to minimize both. It was too dangerous otherwise: what if he were to grow reliant on John’s touch, however fleeting? What if he were to start anticipating it, only to never receive it again? What if in the midst of a sensory overload, he reached out as towards an anchor, and found that John was not there?

No, the risk vastly outweighed the gain, so it needed to stop. He needed to stop. He felt a sweeping feeling of familiar sadness at the thought, along with a new keen sting of disappointment. However – needs must. 

“If you are both quite done stating the obvious, perhaps we might move this conversation towards the pertinent?” he drawled, interrupting. 

“Oh well excuse me, oh mighty Sherlock Holmes!” Lestrade said loudly. “We couldn’t have you being bored now, could we?” He went to share a look with John, but his eyes were fixed on his notebook. This seemed to peeve Lestrade even more. “Well, go on then, amaze us!” 

Sherlock steepled his hands in front of his face, pressing away the twitchy feeling as he had so many times before. He called up all the information he had been dumping in the archives, letting it float at fixed points in the air in front of him. After a pause, he said,

“The killer took Nadia Hussein first, but he already knew of Steven Donaldson, our recently identified academic. He did reconnaissance on his victims in advance, so your priority needs to be finding that van and where it has been spotted as he is most likely out choosing his next victim if he hasn’t done it already.”

“How do you know that Sherlock?” John asked. He again sounded quieter than usual. Curious, rather that demanding or exasperated. Sherlock didn’t like it. 

“Obvious,” Sherlock snapped, waiting for a rebuke of look or word from John but getting none. The feeling of uncanny wrong-ness grew. He rallied and continued, gesturing at the incident board where all the information on the victim’s background’s and side-interests was displayed. It wasn’t arranged correctly, not at all how Sherlock would have done it, but was still useful. “Steven Donaldson has a wood-working hobby revolved predominantly around building his own boats, here in the shed at the bottom of his garden. Note the size and weight of the ropes involved in the rigging, then look here at the gardening items. See the bag of zip-ties, used to support plants as they grow? The killer took the rope and ties that he used to restrain all three victims from this shed, which means he was there days before he kidnapped and killed Steven Donaldson or Isabel Frank.”

“So we need to sweep the shed again for prints, right,” said Lestrade approvingly. “And I’ll get someone to push on with the search for that van. But Sherlock, it’s a really popular model, there are thousands of them on the road.” 

“We need to know how he is choosing them,” mused John, moving closer to both the board and subsequently to Sherlock. Sherlock swerved away towards the other end of the display.  
“What do we know about them, other than their jobs, their hobbies?” he asked Lestrade.

“Uh, well we know Nadia didn’t get on well with other people or at school. Parents said she was bullied, called names.”

“What names?” Sherlock asked, sensing some hesitation. Lestrade looked uncomfortable but pressed on.

“Freak was one of them. Weirdo.” He quailed slightly at the sight of Sherlock’s raised eyebrow and impassive expression. “Look she just wasn’t a ‘normal’ kid, OK? However politically incorrect that might be to say.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” said John. Sherlock kept his eyes on Lestrade’s face thought John’s tone alone radiated dark disapproval. 

“Yeah OK I know that,” said Lestrade, exasperated. 

“In that case then,” Sherlock interrupted again, “are we in fact looking at three freaks?” Lestrade was shocked into silence. Sherlock rolled his eyes and gestured at the board. “Nadia Hussein we know, but what about Steven Donaldson and Isabel Frank? Anyone been calling them names that we know of?”

“Well... actually yeah there was something about Steven Donaldson now you mention it. His colleagues didn’t seem to like him much. Said he was rude and a bit weird. We think that’s why they didn’t report him missing for so long, he was a loner.”

“An extremely intelligent loner,” corrected Sherlock. “A double PhD holding, published, weird, boat-carving loner. And Isabel Frank?”

“Autistic,” said John with a touch of wonder. “She was diagnosed autistic; it’s mentioned here in the file from the MRI lab because they knew she would have issues going into the tube. Sherlock... do you think this is what the killer is looking for?”

“Weirdos and freaks? If it is what he’s looking for then I’ll have to be careful, won’t I?” he said, knowing it was snide and unnecessary even as it came out of his mouth, though he didn’t regret it.

“Hey now...” said Lestrade, raising one hand towards him but Sherlock was already waving it away. 

“A joke in poor taste, apologies,” he said dismissively, clasping his hands tightly now behind his back. There was a rather loud silence, then thankfully the door swung open and the new officer that Sherlock had met briefly at the crime scene strode in. He saw him now for the first time without his protective garb, and he looked as fierce and irritable as ever.   
“Sorry sir,” he addressed Lestrade in his deep voice, ignoring Sherlock and John entirely. 

“It’s alright we were just wrapping up anyway. Sergeant Jeffries, this is Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, have you been introduced?” Jeffries’ cool gaze swept over John and landed on Sherlock, who resisted wrinkling his nose. The man’s scent was a cloying nasty thing, still tinged all over with the moss green of death. It seemed he had not showered since the previous day, the smell of the crime scene still clinging to him. Disgusting. How the others couldn’t smell it was beyond Sherlock, aside from making him mildly jealous.   
“Yeah we’ve met,” came the rumbling voice. “Can I speak to you outside Detective Inspector?”

“If it’s about this case, might as well include them,” said Lestrade. Jeffries definitely didn’t like that, but Sherlock saw John stand a little taller and so appreciated Lestrade’s loyalty.   
“Right,” said Jeffries, disapproving. “Well it looks like our killer has tried it again. We just got a report in – someone from Barts’ was attacked but he managed to get away. He described the van the killer is driving, the ropes he tried to use, the lot.”

“Excellent!” said Sherlock.

“You what?” Jeffries said, turning around.

“This is perfect!” Sherlock said, ignoring him.

“You are seriously unbelievable,” said Jeffries, taking a step forward into Sherlock’s personal space.

“Jeffries,” Lestrade warned.

“Yeah leave it. Ignore him if you have to, he can’t help it,” said John. Something about the way he phrased it clanged a faint warning bell from deep within the palace, and Sherlock filed it away for later. 

“Listen, all of you. He’s made a mistake. He’s been a step ahead of us, he chooses his victims carefully, he prepares. Now its gone wrong, he’s not just going to choose some random person. He needs to find another one, and it’ll take time.” He waited for this to sink in. 

“So we just got another few days?” said Jeffries, far from placated. 

“Exactly. Now who was it that was attacked? A patient?”

“No, he works there. Eric Lang, they’re bringing him here once they’re done in the hospital.”

“Eric...” said John, obviously trying to place the familiar name. 

“The cleaner, John,” Sherlock supplied, excitement rising. “The cleaner at the new MRI lab.”

“What, do you know him?” asked Lestrade, trying to keep up.

“No,” grinned Sherlock, the thrill of the chase calling as their theory was confirmed, “but we do know that he is a freak, a weirdo, and autistic.”

*****************************************

John rubbed his shoulder irritably. It was very unhappy with him, after he had stepped between Jeffries and Sherlock to block the blow. Jeffries had been absolutely incensed and it had taken both John and Lestrade to force him from the room after he went for Sherlock, who had looked on with cold, somewhat confused aloofness. From Jeffries’ point of view, in one comment Sherlock Holmes had confirmed what all of them already suspected – he was unhinged, unfeeling, and unbelievably lacking in basic humanity. Lestrade had a hell of a time attempting to convince him otherwise before returning and letting loose a diatribe on Sherlock himself. 

“Sherlock you can’t say things like that! Especially in front of my officers! You have to watch your mouth!” He had said, running a hand yet again through his hair making it look like he had been dragged through a hedge. His whole demeanour was that of a man who had already crossed the line of what was reasonable stress levels, and John felt a twinge of sympathy at his situation.

“I was speaking English, I believe,” Sherlock had said slowly. He was standing tall, taught, observant as a hawk.

“Yes you bloody well were, but you don’t think before you speak, ever!” Lestrade snarled, growing in volume. “Jeffries wants to put in an official complaint, get you barred from the building!”  
“On what grounds?” John had asked, aiming for calm.

“Oh, for being heartless, I don’t know. They’ll think of something official, something about a bad attitude in regards to vulnerable witnesses. I convinced him to let me handle it, for now.” Lestrade had thrown himself into one of the chairs, one hand over his face. Glancing over at Sherlock, John could see that he had folded his arms in front of his chest, either to appear even more unreachable or as a protective barrier. 

“I merely mimicked the vocabulary that I have often heard bandied about by those officers that you would seek to protect from me,” Sherlock had said in a chilly voice that John had not heard him use for a few months. Lestrade had sighed then, a whole-body sigh, rubbed his face again then looked up.

“Yeah, I know. And I know it’s a double standard, alright? I do know that, I see that. But you are here by invitation, Sherlock, while they work here. They aren’t just here for the ‘fun’ cases, they’re here day in and day out and they aren’t going to tolerate you if you don’t watch it.” John had winced at the sad and unfair accuracy of this, even as Sherlock had raised an eyebrow on an otherwise immobile face. 

“Noted,” was all the consulting detective had said, before turning 90 degrees on the spot to gaze at the incident room display. His whole posture from the haughty raised chin to set of his shoulders screamed that he was done with this topic. John could see through the facade though. Sherlock was tired, the translucency of his skin and the shadows around his eyes spoke to that. He was angry too – very angry, and reigning it in because there didn’t seem to be an appropriate outlet. John wondered what the fallout was going to be when they made it back home again. It was easy sometimes for people to see Sherlock as this private-school strange specimen, and forget that if he so wished he could probably snap most of them in two, burn the place to the ground and lay the blame for it all at the feet of the little old lady who lived down the road. One of life’s real mysteries was why he didn’t.

Sherlock had told him that he had slept well, and though John wished it were true he knew it wasn’t. He had barely slept either, and had seen the faint glow of the lamps cast by the main floor of the flat out onto the shadow of the road while he moved restlessly around his third floor bedroom. John had been kept awake by a compulsion to research, not about the case but about his friend and flatmate. Sherlock was as dear to him as any friend had ever been, and the urge to understand him better now that it had been awakened properly was almost impossible to quash. He had gone through countless web pages of information on sensory disorders, had read blogs full of anecdotal evidence about living with someone with Asperger’s, felt a kinship on forums where doctors discussed their patients dealing with synthesthesia and longed to be able to comment on them, ‘Yes, this is exactly the same! This is exactly what he’s like! I found it!’ But he couldn’t. Not just because Sherlock was not his patient, and not just to protect their privacy, but because it wasn’t true. There was nothing out there, no one set of conclusions or set of symptoms or guidelines for therapy that fully described the head, hand and heart of Sherlock Holmes. John was both immensely frustrated by that, and humbled to know that such an extraordinary person had somehow ended up such an important part of his life. 

He looked at Sherlock now, standing closed-off and approachable as a polar bear – and he didn’t blame him. The situation was ridiculous, and John was really in two minds about it. He wanted to stop the killer, he wanted to help the future victims, but he also wanted to grab Sherlock by the elbow and get him out of this place full of people that took him so much for granted. Lestrade had basically just said that he would allow his officers to continue their campaign of bullying Sherlock, and if he defended himself his case privileges would be revoked. If it had only been John that was affected he would have turned on his heel and left without a backwards glance, but Sherlock was different. The cases were what animated him, what brought him as close to happiness as John had ever been allowed to see. He wasn’t about to give them up without a fight, and so John stayed. Lestrade was still sitting in the chair. He caught John’s eye, looking a tad contrite, but John wasn’t in the mood to offer him any assurances. He liked the DI but the man had just drawn a line in the sand between Sherlock and the force, and John knew which side of that line he was standing on. 

There was a knock on the door and this time it was Donovan who walked confidently into the room. She glanced at Sherlock and her mouth twisted like she had tasted something sour, then said,

“Eric Lang is here sir,” before leaving, confident that Lestrade would follow. Sherlock moved towards the door.

“No, Sherlock,” said the DI as he rose from his chair. “That’s not a good idea.” Sherlock stopped, weight poised between his two feet as if he had literally frozen in place. John’s joints twinged in sympathy at how much tension must be contained in that slim figure. Sherlock stared at Lestrade, face still impassive but unable to completely cover the aggravation he was feeling. 

“So that’s it then? I’m off the case?” He consonants were cut off like whips, words fired as a warning shot across a bow. Lestrade winced a little guiltily. 

“That’s not what I’m saying. Let’s just let the situation cool down. I’ll tell you everything that is said in the interview, alright?”

“No,” Sherlock snapped. “It is not, ‘alright’. I wouldn’t trust the moronic cretins you call detectives to extract the required information from a dictionary, let alone a key witness.”

“Sherlock,” John couldn’t help the quiet admonishment slip out. He empathized with Sherlock but this wasn’t going to help. He was forced to look away though when Sherlock’s gaze, last night so lost and open, swept over him as impersonal as a submarine sonar. “I’ll go,” he suggested, desperate to show his support.

“You?” Sherlock sneered.

“Yeah – I’ll sit in the interview, how about that?” He addressed the last to Lestrade, unwilling to face Sherlock’s ire much longer. 

“OK that’s fine, yeah you can come. Alright?” Lestrade was moving towards the door, obviously hoping to avoid more confrontation.

“Sherlock?” John questioned, raising his eyes again. He might as well have been looking at the closed door of an industrial freezer. Sherlock maintained his impassive face a beat longer, and then it melted into an approximation of a warm, friendly smile. That’s if a viper could be warm and friendly. 

“Of course John. Whatever you think,” he said, voice oozing calm and supportive civility. “You can fill me in when you get home,” he continued, walking so briskly towards the door that the other two had to move out of his way. 

“Sherlock,” he tried again, sensing they were on extremely dangerous ground. 

“It’s absolutely fine, John, I’m sure you will all do an excellent job. I’ll just head on home then. Good morning.” The thing that disturbed John the most about it was that even someone of low IQ who was sporting a concussion would not have fallen for this act. Either Sherlock wanted them to see how much of a hash he was making of it, or his control was very close to breaking. There wasn’t anything he could do though as he watched Sherlock disappear out of sight, and Lestrade steered him towards another conference room. 

**********************************************

It was the early evening when John finally found himself climbing the stairs up to their flat. The interview had been long as they were hampered by Eric Lang’s difficulty both in understanding their questions and ability to phrase his answers. At certain points John was glad he was there to act as an advocate for him as tempers in the room ebbed and fell. What they had gleaned was that someone had struck Eric a blow across the back of his head when he was collecting supplies from the cleaning closet. Then he had been wrapped in a sheet and dragged down a hallway towards a fire door. He had pretended to be unconscious so as to avoid further attacks. His kidnapper had let go of the sheet while he stopped to open the fire door, giving Eric time to roll free of the sheet and surprise him by pushing him bodily through the door and slamming it shut again. He had seen the blue van waiting right outside, doors already open, coils of rope at the ready, though he hadn’t known their significance and possibly still didn’t. John had felt a deep pity for him as he struggled through his account. Eric was a large and strong individual but it was obvious to all who met him that he would make an easy target. 

“Quiet, very very quiet,” Eric had said, hiding his face behind his hair. 

“The corridor was quiet?” Donovan had asked. Eric had curled in on himself even further.

“No, never quiet. Loud, voices. Signs. The light,” Eric said softly. “It was me, I was quiet. I’m never quiet,” he added sounding confused. 

“OK so when you were in the sheet and the man was taking you away, you were quiet?” Lestrade had pushed. Eric had nodded, rather uncertainly. His hands never stopped moving, twisting and wrinkling the fabric of his trousers. He sometimes rubbed his ankles together as well, shimmying in his chair uncomfortably. 

“And the man,” asked Donovan, returning to the topic as she had frequently. “Can you tell us anything about the man?”

“He was there,” said Eric. “Knew everything.” 

“What does that mean?” Donovan had said, starting to sound exasperated. 

“Eric,” John had interrupted. “What did the man know?” 

“Knew everything,” Eric had said, peeking out to look at John. “Knew me. Knew where. Knew how.” John had smiled encouragingly. Eric continued, “Knew... what’s inside.” There was a ripple of unease through the room at that. 

“Inside you, you mean?” asked John, fighting to keep his voice calm even as he longed to pummel something. “Eric, did the man touch you?” Eric looked confused, then put one hand on the white bandage protecting the lump on the back of his head. “No,” said John gently, “Did you touch you anywhere else?” Eric frowned at him and then tapped his temple. 

“He knew,” was all he would say then. “He knew.”

The interview had concluded once they realized they couldn’t get an accurate description of the attacker and that had left them all demoralized. John was left wondering if it would have been better or worse to have Sherlock there. What if he had been able to understand something among the disjointed phrases that the rest of them could not? Hell, there was probably something in the brand of hair gel Eric used or the cut of his T-shirt that would have told Sherlock everything they needed to know – but he had been banished from the Yard, and John knew that he was about to bear the brunt of that banishment. 

He cautiously opened the door to the flat, not knowing what he was going to find. He felt a flicker of optimism however at finding Sherlock starting at his own version of the incident wall. Sherlock didn’t acknowledge him, but that was hardly unusual. John shed his scarf and cost then joined him looking at the display – it was different to Lestrade’s as it centred more on possible suspects with the victims more in the periphery. 

“Sandra?” John queried, a little incredulously. “The MRI lab receptionist?” Sherlock merely hummed and rocked slightly in place. Still not up for talking then. John decided to push a bit. 

“Jeffries? You can’t think that’s he’s a suspect. You just don’t like him.” He saw Sherlock’s eyes narrow in irritation. He didn’t know why he was baiting him, there was bound to be an explosion of some kind, but he knew Sherlock, now. Perhaps an explosion was necessary. “Cheswell... OK yeah I can see that one.”

“Can you?” said Sherlock shortly. “Or is it that you just don’t like him?” The last was said in a perfect imitation of John, and John had to fight not to smile. 

“Both, actually,” he said instead. “He was super creepy while he was trying to get you to do the MRI. Plus he’s interested in brains, right? Maybe a bit too interested.” Too interested in you, too, he wanted to add but he had no real justification in doing so. 

“Super creepy,” Sherlock imitated him again, then turned to face him. There was something off, even more than anger at being sent away from the witness interview. “Is that your medical opinion, Dr. Watson?” John was thrown. He had expected ranting and raving, even household breakages due to the unfair treatment at the Yard, but he hadn’t expected to be the subject of Sherlock’s displeasure. 

“Creepy is hardly a diagnosis,” John said, looking him over for clues. Sherlock was still rocking in place ever-so slightly, looking like a bomb about to go off. “Let’s sit down and you can explain it to me,” he suggested, and Sherlock all-but bared his teeth at him. “Look I know you’re angry...” he tried confronting the issue head on.

“Angry?” Sherlock gasped. “Angry?” He laughed, a choked, mean thing. “As if anything those... those boring, vacuous people could say would matter to me? Spare me your comforts, John.” He started to walk away but then apparently unable to stop himself added, “And spare me your diagnoses!” 

John suddenly felt hollow, as if his guts had contracted. Diagnoses. Sherlock knew about his late-night research, had seen his search history, had...

“Oh please, stop!” Sherlock ground out. “Stop your incessant thinking, your fretting, your worrying! It’s useless to me and it’s unwanted. I have never cared what people thought of me and I’m not about to start now.” 

“You went on my computer,” said John, tracking Sherlock with his eyes as he started to pace as a caged animal paces. Sherlock scoffed in response.

“You needed to do research on the topic? I’m sorry John but that’s just sad. Don’t you retain any information from medical school at all?” His tone was mocking, his eyes were hard. He was almost unrecognizable from this time 24 hours ago. 

“Then how...”

“Ignore him if you have to, he can’t help it,” Sherlock sing-songed in John’s voice. Then, “He didn’t mean to, you don’t have to keep on,” spat in Sandra’s accent, an almost perfect sound-bite of how she had described Eric back at the lab. John scrambled for something to say but Sherlock wasn’t done. “So, Doctor Watson, you think you know something about me now? Which diagnosis have we arrived at then – was it Autism? Processing disorders? Bipolar? Depressive? Or maybe you’ve decided I’m a monstrous mix of all three?”

“Sherlock, no!”

“Spare me!” He shouted again, and there was no accent now, no cover. This was Sherlock alone and John could easily hear the ragged hurt in his voice. “If you think there is a convenient box that you can open and shove me into, then you are mistaken! You can pack up everything you own here and get out right now! Go and work for Scotland Yard, no freaks or weirdos there to concern yourself with! Or better yet you can go back to diagnosing broken bones and seasonal flu because that’s all you are equipped to handle!”

“Enough!” bellowed John, and was gratified to see Sherlock stumble slightly as his pacing slowed in surprise. John took a deep breath, reminding himself that though it might be pleasing in the short-term to escalate this to a full-blown slanging-match, what he really wanted was for Sherlock to understand. “Broken bones and seasonal flu? You forget, Sherlock, I was an army doctor. I was serving in a warzone before you even dreamed up the term ‘consulting detective’. I diagnosed death, and I did it every day until I was allowed to come home, and now that I’ve found that home I am not about to pack it all up due to one of your temper tantrums.” Sherlock stared at him. He still looked agitated, but he was listening. John relaxed his hands as he realized they had again curled into fists at his side, and Sherlock tracked the movement with his eyes. John pressed his advantage. “No one is trying to ‘put you in a box’, especially not me.” Sherlock scoffed. 

“I’ll let them put me in a box when I’m dead,” he spat. He spun away, back to looking at the display. 

“Knowing you, you’ll go out in some ridiculous fashion and there won’t be anything left to put in a box anyway,” said John airily. Sherlock didn’t answer but there was some reduction in tension. They stood next to each other facing the wall. John could still feel the seething tension coming off Sherlock like mist, and he instinctively raised his hand and laid it lightly on Sherlock’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. 

Bad plan, he thought a moment later as Sherlock all but leapt across the room. “Don’t touch me!” Sherlock said, as if John had mortally offended him. John raised his hands, palms out.   
“OK, sorry,” he said, confused and more than a little disappointed. Sherlock hadn’t seemed to mind the casual touches the previous evening. Though, thinking back, he hadn’t reacted particularly positively then either. More of a subsiding neutral. “I was just trying to help,” he said, starting to think of giving this up as a bad evening and going up to his room. Sherlock blinked at him, still wary.

“Well don’t,” he said, moving a few paces closed to the display again. “Unless you want to go back to Bart’s.”

John was thrown by the topic change. “I’m sorry?”

“You said you wanted to help?” said Sherlock. He walked to the wall and slapped his hand over the photo of Isabel Frank. “She is our weak link, we know barely anything about her and most of her medical files are missing.”

“Missing? What do you mean, we know she was autistic...”

“Oh and that’s all that matters isn’t it?” said Sherlock, hackles raised. “Go home everyone, we are done here, she was autistic, case closed.”

“That is not what I meant and you know that,” said John, exasperated. 

“I barely ever know what you mean, John,” said Sherlock turning him away again. “Regardless, there is more information in her medical files than we have here. I checked with the original hospital and they already send them along to Bart’s. I called Cheswell and he said to go along there now to collect them. I’d go myself, but heaven forbid I upset anyone.” He folded his arms again, squaring off to the wall, as if John had ceased to exist. John sighed. 

“I’m not getting out of this, am I?”

“Unless you want me to go and have a cosy chat with Cheswell?” sniped Sherlock. John didn’t know how to interpret that. It could have been a taunt, it could have been a threat, it could even have been... flirtatious? Pissed-off flirtatious, but still... With all that was happening he was starting to feel a bit at sea. “Perhaps he’s not so creepy after all.” Sherlock mused, and there was no way he was oblivious to what he was implying. 

“Well I’m a doctor,” said John reaching for his coat. “And I diagnosed him – definitely creepy. I’ll go, you stay here.” Sherlock eyed him.

“Worried I’ll say something I shouldn’t?” he pressed.

“I’ve always worried about that, Sherlock, and it hasn’t stopped you before. Hasn’t stopped me either. I’m far more worried that he will do something or say something to you that he shouldn’t, and that I’ll have to punch him in the face. OK? Happy now?” John had a moment of wondering at his own bravado until he saw the bewilderment on Sherlock’s face. Not flirting then, so John’s comment had obviously gone right over his head. John couldn’t pretend to himself that he wasn’t disappointed. 

“Why should I be happy that you punch Cheswell in the face?” Sherlock asked. John shook his head and went to the door.

“Never mind. I’ll talk to him, be back later.” He left Sherlock standing in the centre of the room looking as if John had been speaking in an alien language. Perhaps he had been.

************************************************

John arrived quickly at Bart’s just as the light started failing. Most of the staff would have gone home by then, including Molly, but he hoped Cheswell might still be there. He hoped it would clear the air between he and Sherlock if he could at least bring back more information to move the case along. He walked along a few wide dark corridors, knowing most of the route by memory, until he arrived at the MRI suites. Sandra wasn’t there, in fact the place look deserted. John swore in his head, turning to leave, but then saw that there was a light on in the main MRI lab, but he couldn’t make out the humming and accompanying vibrations of the machine as he walked closer. 

“Dr. Cheswell?” he called, knocking on the door. “Are you in there?” No reply but as he knocked on the heavy door again it swung slightly inwards, so he pushed it and cautiously looked into the room. The lights stung his eyes, they were so bright, so he raised a hand to block them slightly as he moved into the room. The machine wasn’t on, but there was someone in the machine.

“Hello?” asked John, confused. “Sorry, I’m looking for Doctor Cheswell.” The hairs on the back of his neck were rising as there was no response and no movement from the figure on the bed, and with a frisson of alarm John realized he had left his gun at home. He looked quickly around, but there was no one else in the room and no other movements or sounds. He turned then to the bed, leant down to peer into the machine even as his hands confirmed what his brain hadn’t wanted to accept – the figure was cold and dead. He whipped around again, looking at the door, and fished for his phone in his pocket even as he approached the controls for the retracting bed. He input his phone password as he worked the controls and the bed slid out, revealing the corpse of Martin Cheswell. John swallowed down on his own horror, eyes back on the door to the lab, as the corpse came fully into view and he saw that the top of his head had been removed. He automatically dialled for Sherlock rather than the police. 

“John?” 

“Sherlock, I’m in the MRI lab and Cheswell is here, he’s dead.”

“John?” Sherlock repeated, more sharply. “I can’t understand you.” John swore under his breath, remembering that these kinds of machines could interfere with phone signals. He cast around the room for something to arm himself with, but it was empty. He would have to leave the lab to get a clear signal. 

“I’ll call you back,” he said into the phone, even if Sherlock couldn’t hear him. He pressed himself to the wall and went around the perimeter of the room until he was next to the door. He tried looking through the thin gap between the wall and the door, but it was too dark in the hallway to make anything out. His heart rate had picked up and he had to be careful to keep his breathing quiet. He glanced back at the corpse on the bed, something like fear rising at the sight of the mutilation. He took a few measured breaths, then crouched low onto the floor. He burst through the doors, landing on the floor by the opposite wall, straining his eyes as he looked left and right, the echo of the banging doors reverberating all around. Again he made an effort to calm his breathing as he rose, looking down the dark hallway back the way he had come. He wouldn’t need to go far to get a signal. 

John crept down the hallway, shoes making the odd squeaking sound on the polished floors, back pressed to one wall. He came to a junction and pulled out his phone again, putting in the password. He was just about to dial Sherlock when,

“Drop it.” The voice was very close by, and he didn’t recognize it. “Drop it right now, Doctor Watson.” Cursing, John dropped the phone but then spun as quickly as possible towards the voice. Unfortunately this had been anticipated and he could barely see, so in short order he found himself slammed face first onto the floor, a heavy weight on top of him and his bad shoulder being wrenched as his arm was twisted up behind his back.

“Get off me!” he shouted, attempting to buck the other off. 

“Hush,” said the man, twisting his arm up even further so that John could barely think for the pain. “No need to shout. He’ll come, whether you shout or not.” John froze then, thoughts racing ahead. “Come on Doctor”, the man continued, lifting John as if he were a bag of potatoes and setting him back on his feet. John tried to kick back at him but was forced forward. It was walk or get his arm ripped off. 

“Now now, none of that,” said the man. “It’s time. Time we all find out what exactly goes on inside Sherlock Holmes’ head. Don’t tell me you aren’t curious?”

“I’ll kill you if you touch him!” John snarled, but his assailant only laughed. 

“Oh don’t worry Doctor, I’ll let you watch the whole thing. He’ll be on his way, I’ll come to get you when we’re ready to start.” John was suddenly shoved forward and couldn’t get his shoulder to unlock fast enough. He hit the floor with only one arm to brace for impact, knocking the side of his head on a wall. He turned just in time to see the door slam closed and hear the lock click, before he was left to wait, in the quiet and the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It took a while to get it out, I don't know about you but it's hard to get super motivated at the moment even though I have more time on my hands. As always, here is my assurance that this fic will not be abandoned! Anyway, please do leave a comment to share your thoughts because whenever I get that notification that someone commented it makes me super happy :-D Take care all!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed. The. Tags.

Sherlock managed to hold himself relatively still until he was sure John had left the flat – but all that nervous energy had to come out somewhere. As soon as he heard the front door close, he whipped around, grabbed a random sheaf of miscellaneous papers and flung them across the room with a cathartic cry of frustration. The noise from his own throat was wild and left him gasping.

He had wanted to fight with John. He had wanted a blazing row, maybe even a physical fight, he was still simmering with such an almost mindless rage that he hadn’t felt since adolescence. But John, clever John, had talked him down in that way that he had. He had not denied trying to diagnose Sherlock nor turned away from the confrontation, but he had somehow inserted himself into the raging lava stream of Sherlock’s anger and remained unharmed. As Sherlock watched the papers fall through the air and settle here and there, he remembered again the absolute humiliation of being sent home, SENT HOME! Away from the case, away from the normal people, and then the bell that had been ringing faintly in his mind had become a klaxon – John KNOWS.

On the journey home from the Yard he had been doused in a cold sweat, clung to the inner taxi door handle, thoughts skittering unpleasantly like discordant notes that even so accompanied this horrifying conclusion. It had been fear then, not anger. John KNOWS. Once back in Baker Street he had fallen onto the carpet, scrabbling at the scarf around his neck as if he was choking, finally shucking it and his coat and curling up there with that monstrous, monstrous thought.

John KNOWS.

Slowly though he had come back to himself. He had looked around from his position on the floor, slightly surprised to see he hadn’t completely wrecked the place, and wondering what sounds he might have been making. Had he made that keening sound that so irritated Mycroft when they were younger? Or had it been the stuttered vocalizations he used to make when he was overwhelmed and trying to catalog? He had listened, straining his ears, for signs of Mrs. Hudson and thankfully it seemed she wasn’t home. The relief had been enormous, which almost set him to rights again.

Distracting himself by setting up the incident wall, he spent some mental energy going over the clues from John – his behavior and words – that all pointed to him knowing the truth. The truth. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Sherlock Holmes was a freak.

He had sat with that for a moment. Sat in his green armchair, holding it, that truth. Turning it over, examining it for flaws. Held it up to the light, checked its integrity. He had examined himself too – tired. Overwrought. Far too emotionally unstable. He should remove himself from the current case and spend some time repairing the palace, repairing himself. The transport had too much control, the mind was reeling. There was a crack in the lens and he couldn’t see clearly. He had reached into his pocket intent on messaging Lestrade that he wouldn’t be continuing, but his hand had instead retrieved a piece of paper. Opening it, he saw the scan that had been taken of John’s thought patterns in the new MRI. He had flattened the paper and smoothed the creases, fingertips ghosting over the changes in color and shape that alluded to John’s changing thoughts. 

John. His friend John, his helper, his flat mate, his doctor who now knew beyond doubt that Sherlock was not normal. Not proper. Not… human? He heard Donovan’s voice as if she was standing right next to him. You aren’t even human.

Staring still at John’s scan (John who smelled like… it was warm and gold and grainy, but it wasn’t sand… he almost knew what it was, then…) Sherlock had gone to a file in an oft-used cabinet in the palace. He kept quotes and snippets here about the nature of humanity, some easily understood and some more opaque. Paulina Simons had said, ‘What does it mean to be human, to be good, to be moral, to be all three at once? It means that flawed beings often must choose between two flawed options.’ Sherlock already found it hard enough to be ‘good’ and ‘moral’ when most of the moral precepts of the world made no sense to him – it was reassuring then that he could choose to ignore the ‘human’ part as he worked on the other two. Then the great Terry Pratchett had written, ‘There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.’ That had been bittersweet – to know he wasn’t alone in finding it difficult, but also that he was struggling to master something that had been deemed impossible. 

The last one he reviewed had stuck with him as it had never made sense when he was young, though it seemed as if it should have – this one was from Nick Hornby. ‘The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.’ Though he would swear blind to anyone who would listen that he had been a user and not an addict, Sherlock had been able to at least identify with part of this idea. However he had not been able to see how the act of loving someone could ever come close to the dramatic highs and lows of his lived experience that heroin brought.

He thought he might be beginning to see how it could, now. 

Coming back to the present, Sherlock regarded the papers now littering the floor and chairs around the flat as he did the quotes that had floated through the air in the palace earlier that afternoon. He sighed, beginning to collect them. Before having a flatmate he would have left the physical papers laying hither and thither even as he collected the mental ones, as those were the only ones that mattered. But now there was John. John, who lives here, who KNOWS, and would change with the knowing. Had already changed. 

His phone rang. 

“John?”  
“…MRI…well…dead.” Sherlock’s previously whirling thoughts suddenly coalesced, as clear as silver glass. Instincts and methods of perception switched gears. He felt like a supercomputer that had just gone from ‘idle’ to ‘on’.  
“John? I can’t understand you.” He was already reaching for his coat, already calculating the fastest way to the hospital. Shouldn’t have sent him alone!  
“…all …back.” The line went dead and Sherlock was already donning the coat and halfway up the stairs to John’s room before the display went off. He went straight to the drawer containing John’s gun, mind already jumping steps ahead, lifting him clear of the mess and fog of thought he had been mired in all day. John was in danger and Sherlock was going to need all his wits about him. He smiled for what felt like the first time in days as he trotted back down the stairs. 

The game was on.

*******************

Walking at a brisk pace to the corner of Baker Street. Sherlock was just about to type a message to Lestrade when the phone back in his hand lit up. It was from John’s number.

No police. Just you. 

The implicit threat to John’s life was clear. Sherlock gave the problem over to a distant part of his consciousness while he turned sharply down an alley and vaulted up, aided by first a drain pipe then protruding windowsill to clear an alley and take two minutes off his travel time. It was extremely unlikely that this criminal had access to his own phone (jump down via the top of a dustbin), so if he did send an SOS to Lestrade (or Mycroft, jog, turn right), it was not that the criminal would know he sent it (pass Myra and Philip from the homeless network, nod, dismiss, turn left), but that they would somehow see the arrival of any help that was sent (crouch low, avoid electrical lines). So, based on what they knew of him so far (red light, wait) did this person have a surveillance system or network of helpers that would see the police coming before Sherlock could disable him (speed up but don’t run)?

Sherlock rounded a corner and stopped with Bart’s in view between two buildings. He took out the phone and re-read the message. Ignore it, or don’t ignore it? Even as his mind showed him visions of the probably outcomes of the evening ahead, he still wasn’t completely sure of his decision.

**********************  
As Sherlock arrived at the doors to the hospital, he felt the phone vibrate again. 

MRI lab. Storeroom. 

Sherlock turned, one hand on the door, scanning the road and other buildings for signs of movement, cameras, watchers. He saw nothing. Taking a deep breath he pushed open the doors and walked inside. The corridor was dark and his footsteps muted on the linoleum floor as he moved confidently forward. This person knew he was coming, wanted to meet him. He wasn’t going to jump out from behind a corner. He wanted to tell him something. He made his way to the MRI lab without incident, noting the light from around the lab door but not moving towards it. He heard a pounding as of someone hitting a door from close by, but for a moment stood still and allowed his senses to collect as much data as possible. No movement. Minimal electrical power. John is alive and alone. He would be given further instructions. 

Satisfied, he moved towards the thumping sounds coming from the storeroom and shone his phone light on the handle. Locked. 

“John?” A pause. 

“Sherlock!” John did not sound happy. In fact, he sounded horrified. “Sherlock no, you have to get out of here.” Sherlock almost snorted, it was far too late for that. 

“John are you injured?” 

“What? No, no I’m fine but you need to go, go now, get help!” Sherlock got up close to the lock and saw that the key had been broken off inside it. 

“I’ll have to take the hinges off the door. How much room do you have?”

“Sherlock no, please listen, you have to get away, now!” There was an edge to John’s voice that hadn’t been there before. Sherlock didn’t like it. His internal lens had been so clear since the first text message, but hearing that edge to John’s voice a brief moment of anxiety. John was not supposed to sound like that.

“I am not leaving you. You need to stand back.” He drew John’s gun from his waistband and aimed at the first hinge.

“Sherlock…” 

“I’ll take that.” A torch beam hit the gun in Sherlock’s hand. John went quiet. The new voice was deep, confident and unfamiliar, but there was something… Sherlock made to turn around to get a look, when there was a loud sound and he suddenly had a face covered in brick dust. The man had shot at the wall right by his face. Sherlock had not anticipated another gun.

“SHERLOCK!” John sounded like a man possessed and there was a sudden flurry of bangs and crashes from behind the locked door. 

“Gun on the floor, kick it backwards towards me,” said the man, supremely unconcerned that John was trying to come through the door like a human wrecking ball. Sherlock did as he was told even as he tried to soothe his distraught friend. 

“John I’m alright I’m not hurt. He doesn’t want to hurt me.”

“True,” agreed the unseen figure with some shade of surprise as he collected the gun from the floor. “Unfortunately though the procedure does cause some pain. If you come along willingly, it will be better.” The voice was moving off towards the labs. 

“No!” John snarled from within, even as the door gave a great heave.

“Of course if you don’t come along willingly, I’ll need to kill your friend. He is being very loud.” Footsteps faded away. 

“You BASTARD!” John shouted. Sherlock laid a hand on the closed, rattling door. He wanted to tell John that it would be alright, but he was fairly certain that that wasn’t true. Unbidden, one of the quotes from earlier that day ghosted over his thoughts. ‘You just have to love someone.’ Dramatic enough, indeed.

“I’ll see you soon, John,” he said, lying. 

“Sherlock, no!” Sherlock ignored him and walked over to the lab doors, his head held high, his heart left behind.

**************************

Sherlock pushed open the MRI lab door but remained in the doorway. He took in Cheswell’s mutilated corpse with a glance, noting the lack of restraints. There was no one else in the room, and he let the door swing shut as he noted more lights on in the new MRI lab operating office. He went inside, eyes adjusting further to the bright lights. The electromagnetic doors were still operational, the new lab was lit. He looked through the window. Lengths of wide rope had already been laid out in preparation. Sherlock’s breath caught for a moment before he forced the panic back. He looked down at the messy control area. This machine had hardly been used, so there were pens, paperclips and other detritus among the switches. Looking supremely out of place were a silver pair of scissors and an electric shaver. 

“It has to be done, I’m afraid. I tried it without cutting their hair but the results aren’t as good. I can do it for you, if you want?” Sherlock noticed his own fingertips felt cold even as he raised his gaze back up to the observation window. He could see the reflection of a man standing behind him who was both familiar and unfamiliar. 

“Hello, Eric,” he said. 

“Hello!” Eric sounded delighted. He had a gun trained on Sherlock’s back, and there was nothing nonchalant about it. His long hair was combed back out of his face, his posture was straight, his speech was strong and assured. He was half a foot taller as his previous hunch was gone, and seemed built like a brick wall. “Did you know it was me, then?”

“Actually, no. I thought the same of you as everyone else – just the local village idiot.” Sherlock aimed the barb as a distraction tactic but it fell far short as Eric gave a hearty laugh.

“Yes that has come in helpful. ‘Poor autistic Eric, wouldn’t hurt a fly’ – hurt you though. Right in front of them, too.” The bruise on Sherlock’s forehead twinged at the memory. 

“I thought you didn’t want to hurt me?”

“I don’t, per se. When you first came here I just wanted to get close to you, really. ‘The Great Sherlock Holmes’. Does what all the rest of us do, but somehow has respect as well? Wondered how you did it.”

“The rest of us?” Sherlock used his peripheral vision to seek out anything that could be used as a weapon. The scissors were the obvious choice, but he would have one chance and his aim must be true. 

“The freaks and the weirdos, Mr. Holmes!” Crowed Eric. “All of us freaks and weirdos who are left out in the cold, while you prance about with the police and the norms and get your picture in the papers. Must be something different about you, eh? Let’s find out what it is.” Sherlock spun to the left as fast as he was able, right hand scooping up the scissors and they glinted in the lights as he whirled, heading for Eric’s throat. Eric dodged, anticipating, and brought a knee up solidly into Sherlock’s chest, knocking him to the floor, his right wrist squeezed inside Eric’s giant fist. Eric squeezed harder causing the scissors to slip from Sherlock’s numb fingers even as he cried out in pain. 

“Now now none of that.” Eric shoved him back even as he picked up the fallen scissors, and Sherlock rose, cradling his arm to his chest. 

“What do you want?” Sherlock asked, stepping further back.

“I want to KNOW!” Eric suddenly roared, switching from calm affable violence to someone unhinged. Sherlock filed it away – it was possible to break his control. “I want to know what makes us different. I want to know why we are freaks, I want to go inside and drag out whatever it is that means we aren’t HUMAN!” Sherlock’s back hit the wall, even as his mind marveled at having some of his darkest and deepest thoughts said out loud by a stranger. “None of the rest have been good enough, strange enough. Not even close to me. But you… you might be. I think you might be.” He was calming again and looking at Sherlock contemplatively. “It didn’t work with them, but it might with you.”

“What didn’t work?” Sherlock asked, suppressing any quaver in his voice. 

“The experiment,” Eric said, mouth upturned. “You and I are going to do a little experiment. And there’s been enough stalling.” He aimed the gun at Sherlock’s chest as he extended the scissors with his other hand. “Step one – that hair is coming off one way or another. You can do it yourself, or I’ll pin you down and do it, and I’d rather avoid that. You look at bit fragile.” Sherlock realized he was still cradling his injured wrist and dropped it as Eric laughed. “Come on, coat off, scarf off, hair off. Or shall I do my experiment on your friend, first? Might be a good idea to get a baseline.” 

“No!” said Sherlock, shucking his coat and cursing internally at his slip. Eric laughed again. 

“Ah so the machine does have a friend after all. Good for you! I could never get the hang of friends. They’re mean, and they bore me. Scarf next.” 

“They bore you?” Sherlock’s hands felt frozen now as he shook off his scarf, feeling exposed as if he were naked. He eyed the scissors, still not taking them.

“Hmmm yes. I’ve had a few. They are OK for a while until they know you’re a freak. Then it’s all over. Had to get rid of them. Hair next.” He stepped forward suddenly and the scissors came up under Sherlock’s chin. “Stop stalling. And don’t worry, you’ll do better than the others.” The gun was pressed into Sherlock’s chest – he felt it as he heaved a deep breath despite himself. He took the scissors in his right hand and Eric took a step back. “Go on then!” Eric shouted as Sherlock remained still. Then he shot into the ceiling, causing Sherlock to jump even as the echoes bounced around the room. Eric seemed mainly in control, but he wasn’t. He could kill Sherlock on a whim, at any time. 

Sherlock raised his left hand as if in a dream, grasped the curls at the front of his head and raised the scissors in his right. ‘It’s just hair – you can use this to stall him’, palace-Mycroft said. ‘I know it’s just hair,’ Sherlock thought derisively, but still felt a deep pang of grief as the soft ‘schiiiick’ sound came and the first few curls floated down to the ground. It shouldn’t hurt, there were no nerves in hair after all – but it did. 

“Good!” Said Eric, apparently happy again. “Keep going, lots to do.” Sherlock grasped the next handful of hair and raised the scissors, stomach roiling.

“What are you hoping to find, Eric?” he asked. Schiiiick.

“I want to be able to see it.”

“See what?” Schiiiick.

“See the difference! We don’t think like them, the normal people. I want to be able to see the difference, and then I can understand it. Did you know, they don’t have a list of what to do or how to act, not at all? They just… do it. They just DO IT! Did you know that?!”

“Yes, I know. They learn it from when they are children.”

“Ingrained behaviors, yes. Like dragging a nail over a piece of wood. Hurry up!” Sherlock reached blindly for the hair at the back of his head. Black curls littered the floor – there were some on his shoe. Schiiiick. “Doesn’t work on us though. ‘Cos we aren’t wood. We are metal.” For some reason the word ‘wood’ caught in Sherlock’s mind and chimed at him. Eric continued, “We’re machines.”

Schiii….

“No,” said Sherlock, surprising himself. 

“No, what?” asked Eric, confused at the shift in attitude. 

“No, I am not a machine,” said Sherlock, for once in his life absolutely certain of that fact. “I’m not a machine, and neither are you. We are both human beings.” Eric scowled at him then gestured impatiently with the gun. Sherlock considered resisting further then remembered the two shots already fired, and John. 

Schiiiick. 

“Well we will find out, won’t we? Take a look inside that head and see who is right. I tried looking at the bodies, inside and outside, but that’s not where it is. It’s in your head. It has to be.” Then he laughed. “Anyway, you don’t even LOOK human, do you? Especially with no hair. Like some kind of alien!” Sherlock patted around the back of his head, dismayed that he could already only find uneven tufts. His hair hadn’t been this short since he had been a very young child, teased and tormented about his strange appearance. His head felt cold and he shivered involuntarily, keeping his eyes resolutely away from his reflection in the window. “Shaver next,” said Eric nastily. “There’s a plug right there.” 

***********************************

‘Take off the hinges’, thought John, hands patting through items on shelves and pawing through boxes. Sherlock had said to take off the hinges, and Sherlock was the smartest person he knew. ‘Take off the hinges’, he chanted over and over again until it had almost no meaning, aside from keeping him from tearing himself apart trying to get out of this room. He had seen caged animals in enemy villages, seen how they would rip their own skin apart trying to get free, and he empathized with them now, oh how he felt for them. He had been too long already – his heart had been firmly lodged in his mouth since he had heard the second gunshot. He had strained his ears, not breathing, then sagged in relief at hearing distant voices. He couldn’t make out what was said or even the tone of voice, but if Sherlock was talking then he was thinking and finding a way out of this, and John had to help him. He had been over everything in the room once already with fumbling fingers, but refused to believe there was nothing in there that could help. He was going through it again now, more methodically, trying to channel some of that calm that he had seen Sherlock adopt time and time again. 

Mycroft had been right that he missed the battlefield, missed the war – but this was not that. He tried to steer his mind away from the recent murders but he wasn’t successful. Wrists and ankles ripped open, clothes taken, throats bruised, heads shaved and burned, then the final grisly end… He had to force himself to stop for a few seconds to gasp for air as he imagined Sherlock in any of their places. Thought of anyone laying their hands on him, trying to dissect him, get inside of him… 

“Aaaargh!” John cried out, shoving a shelf with both hands in the darkness. He remembered the argument with Sherlock earlier that day, how upset and hurt his friend had been. How aware he was of being different. He kicked out in frustration, and heard a metallic noise. Crouching quickly down, he felt around and found… it couldn’t really be, could it? A screwdriver! Apparently in his fugue he had knocked it onto the floor. 

John rushed back to the door, palms suddenly steady with purpose. There was enough faint light around the edges of the door now that he had been in here long enough to adjust. The screwdriver wasn’t exactly the right shape for the screws in the hinges, but it was close. He twisted and turned it carefully, little flecks of metal glinting in the light as it ground in place, but there was definitely an infinitesimal turn.

Take the hinges off, John.  
Take the hinges off! 

******************************************

Sherlock was shaking now and he had given up trying to hide it. After buzzing off as much of the short tufts as he had been able, Eric had shoved him into the chair and done the rest, nicking his scalp in the process. He had kept chatting to Sherlock, telling him about how he had faked the attack on himself to cast aside suspicion, how he had chosen his victims, how he had disposed of his childhood friends in that same stretch of land as his other more recent victims, of how amazingly stupid all ‘normal’ people were. Sherlock hadn’t been able to keep up his side of the conversation as the shaver buzzed and vibrated around his skull, but Eric obviously didn’t care. Even Sherlock’s lips felt cold, and he wondered distantly if he had gone into shock. Shock! Over a haircut and some threats? Preposterous. 

Yet here they were.

He was now wearing a hospital robe after being told to change, and was sat in the metal chair of the new lab, trying to focus on anything aside from how absolutely freezing cold he was. It was like all his thermo-regulatory powers had been lost along with his hair, and he almost gave a hysterical laugh at the thought. Sampson! Eric was still talking even as he secured Sherlock’s wrists and ankles, the biting sting of the restraining ropes muted by the icy feeling in his skin. 

“Of course, they won’t get here in time,” Eric said out of the blue.

“W-who won’t-t?” said Sherlock, teeth chattering. 

“The police. You contacted them, right?” 

“No-o.” 

“Liar,” laughed Eric. “You lie almost as well as me. I checked your phone – you sent a message to Detective Lestrade telling him the murderer is at Bart’s.” Sherlock’s heart sank even further and worryingly his vision appeared to white-out for a millisecond. “Hey now, stay with me Sherlock,” warned Eric. “You’ll have to stay with me for the next part or it’s going to get pretty unpleasant in here.” He started attaching something to different points on Sherlock’s head. “These are your incentive, you see. Once the experiment starts, if you can’t keep up or you try to tap out, these little guys will give you a shock to change your mind. Here, I’ll show you!”

“Wait…Ow!” The pain was there and gone in an instant, but what pain it was! Sherlock had gone from freezing cold to raging heat in the blink of an eye, and it had been such a shock he couldn’t even vocalize how much it had hurt. Eric seemed impressed. 

“Ow? Is that it? Excellent, I was right, you WILL do much better than the others. Breathe, Sherlock.” Sherlock stared at his mocking face in horrified confusion then belatedly took in a huge breath. The electric shock had stopped his lungs in their tracks and he had barely even noticed. He breathed slowly, trying to reign in his heart rate, as Eric reached for the last rope. 

“Why won’t they get here in time?” he asked, dreading the answer. 

“Hmm? Oh them. I told them that Sandra was part of the attack on me. They’ve gone to find her, they’ll think you were talking about her as well. They won’t find her though. Not unless they go digging. Chin up!”

Sherlock didn’t move fast enough and Eric grabbed his chin, forcing it up and looping the rope around his neck. He secured it behind him, anchoring his head to the chair. Panic threatened again and palace-Mycroft said, ‘Breathe, Sherlock. You can breathe.’ He tried and found that it was true, though the rope was restrictive. ‘What am I going to do, Myc?’ he found himself thinking. ‘You are going to get through this, Sherlock. Focus. Pay attention. Strategize.’ Mycroft sounded no more sympathetic than usual. ‘If you could do it again, would you have left John here?’ Mycroft asked as though discussing the weather. Well, at least that was easy. ‘No,’ Sherlock thought instantly. He remembered saying it so easily to John. I am not leaving you. ‘Quite so,’ said Mycroft. ‘When you remove the impossible, then what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. You would not have left John, it was impossible. That is your truth, no matter how improbable. Hold onto it.’ 

“OK Sherlock,” said Eric, striding towards the door and closing it behind him with a sudden loud clang, the movement startling Sherlock as he was left alone in the cold metal room. Eric turned on the intercom and pressed some more switches. The sound of Sherlock’s own heartbeat appeared from the speakers, thumping frantically. He felt a frisson of fear sweep over his skin leaving goosebumps from head to toe. The electrodes itched against the sensitive skin on his head. Eric’s voice came over the intercom, harsh and tinny: “We are going to get started now. Are you ready?” 

Mycroft’s voice, from inside his head, then. ‘You would not have left John, it was impossible.’

I am not leaving you.

You just have to love someone.

“Yes,” said Sherlock, and was gratified to hear the beeping of his heart rate start to slow down as he felt new calm come over him. “I’m ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are my motivating cookies!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pay attention to the tags.

The screen directly in front of Sherlock sprang on, the brand logo bright and cheery. Sherlock did his best to calm his heartbeat which thrummed traitorously through the speaker system, revealing the betrayal of his transport. The pain of the electric shock had left hot painful areas on his head that he was desperate to itch, but the rest of him was back to being cold: so, so cold, like he was already but a living brain in a corpse. He thought again of his brain in an antique jar, covered over with a layer of rust – but there was no John with him this time, in any capacity. He tried to flex his frozen feet to keep circulation going but couldn’t tell from his bound position if he was successful or not. The temperature was controlled in the lab and he wondered if Eric had set it even lower on purpose. Aside from his racing heart, the body below his neck might as well have been submerged in ice water. He rubbed his lips against each other, willing them to stop trembling. 

“Ho-w does it-t work?” he asked, hoping the sound system was two-way.

“Hmm? Oh, well it’s similar to an MRI but it measures the rate at which different tissues in the brain stiffen and relax,” said Eric. He seemed distracted. “It’s faster than measuring bloodflow.”

“I kno-w that. Even Ches-s-well could tell-l me that-t.”

‘What are you doing?’ Mycroft asked, a phantom from the palace standing on his left as if he had the right to leave Sherlock’s head without a by-your-leave.

‘Strategizing,’ thought Sherlock. ‘Distracting.’

“Cheswell was an idiot, like the rest of them.” The TV screen image changed again, a frozen image of a field of flowers appeared. In other circumstances, it would have been quite pleasant. Then it changed to a new frozen image that flickered as if held in place, malevolent. It was a beautiful spiralling fractal in bright colours, but a swoop of foreboding told Sherlock to beware. The image sequence must not be allowed to start, he knew it down to his frost-chilled bones. 

‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ said Mycroft, striding up to look closer at the TV. Even here, his phantom walked with an umbrella. He looked taller than Sherlock remembered. He turned and regarded Sherlock with a mildly chiding look, as if Sherlock had made a childish error. ‘Quickly, then. We don’t have all day.’

“So-o tell me. Explain-n it to me-e. You said it was-s your ex-x-periment – or did you jus-st steal it from-m him?”

“From him?! That waste of skin? He had no idea what he was doing here.” A new vibration went through Sherlock’s cold body as another part of the machine was apparently engaged. He felt it buzz around his chest like a swarm of hornets had taken up residence. “They had the technology of course – fools – they just didn’t know how to put it together. It’s going to track your eyes, where you look, how you follow the image. It’s going to measure your brain patterns, faster than ever before, to see how you process the input. The input will become faster and faster. If you close your eyes or look away, it’s set up to give you an automatic shock to discourage you doing that again.” Sherlock felt his eyes widen almost against his conscious control as he took in that information, as if even his eyelids were trying to protect him. 

“It-t sounds fas-cinating. When-n can I see-e the results?” He tried to wriggle his hands slightly, hoping that Eric wouldn’t notice. Nothing. 

“Ah, unfortunately you won’t be able to see them. It’s a shame, as you are one of the few who might have appreciated it. The experiment will continue up to the point of your endurance, and on. The sequence is programmed to stop when your heart stops beating.” There was a second then that Sherlock’s mind felt as frozen as the rest of him as Eric stated this like one would a bus timetable. 

“OK!” Eric said, sounding happier, obviously finished with his preparations in the control room.

‘Say something!’ commanded Mycroft, suddenly shouting into Sherlock’s cold ear and rattling his petrified brain free.

“Gadolinium!” Sherlock shouted. 

There was a pause. Sherlock strained but he could not move his eyes far enough to the left to see the window to the office. The rope at his neck was coarse, the fibres scratching.

“You used gad-dolinium on-n the others-s,” he said. Mycroft looked from his face towards the window, his expression showing begrudging respect for a passable attempt at distraction. They both waited. The pause continued.

“DAMNIT!” Eric suddenly roared over the speakers. 

“Will-l it affect-t the results?” Sherlock asked, pushing. Mycroft inspected his fingernails.

“Shut up. I’ll be back shortly. Don’t move.” Eric said the last part snidely, then all was quiet. 

‘It takes time for gadolinium to show up in your system,’ thought Sherlock, now attempting to turn his wrists outwards. It only strained the muscles, but he kept up the pressure regardless. 

‘I am well aware of that, brother mine,’ replied Mycroft, wandering out of sight to the right. ‘However I doubt your captor’s patience is going to last that long.’ Sherlock started trying to turn his wrists inward, hissing slightly as the rope-burn found its way through the overall numbness to make itself known. The delicate skin on his wrists was going to be shredded if he kept this up. His heat beat still echoed around the room, speeding slightly as the panic tried to rise again. The slow turn of wrists was not working, and he lost control of himself for a moment, violently twisting them from side to side as far as the rough binding would allow and gasping in panic. ‘Stop that at once!’ rebuked Mycroft, and Sherlock stilled, aching, flushed with shame and effort. He remembered how one of the previous victims had bled out from her wrist, wondered if it was intentional. She had found a way to escape. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to breathe deeper around the restriction at his throat. Eyes open or closed, he could still see Mycroft. 

‘I don’t like MRIs,’ he thought towards the phantom, surprising himself with the childish comment. 

‘Hmm, I recall,” Mycroft said, amused. Sherlock started trying to rotate his ankles – this way, that way. Mycroft continued, ‘You stayed in that tree for six hours the last time. Father had to chase you down with a broom handle.’

Sherlock suddenly was engulfed in a sense-memory. The cold, brutal MRI room was gone, and in its place were… leaves. Green, living leaves, and at his back a solid warm presence. The ancient oak tree in the garden at Musgrave Hall. He was up high straddling one of the strongest branches, little legs hanging down, and surrounded by the golden glowing grainy smell of the oak. He had twigs in his knotted curly hair and dirt on his new trousers. There were voices from down below but they were easily ignored. They had wanted him to go in the MRI again, he had heard them through the study door. They were going to lie and say they were going to the library, but it was for another hated examination. They wanted him to get inside the metal tube, the coffin, and they would look at him until they could look all the way through. They had done it so many times already, no matter how he shook, or cried, or squirmed to get away. They wanted to know what was wrong with him, why he was the way he was, and they were going to look and look until there was nothing left there to look at. Sherlock could feel the protective branches under the palms of his hands, see the dappled green light surrounding him, taste the gold-flavoured wind filling him up and calming him down. His childhood-self, verging on nine years old, had vowed he would not submit to any more of these tests. No more MRIs. No more CTs. No more bloods, cognition, biopsies, samples, no more recordings, therapies, prescriptions, conversations. No. More. He would live forever in the oak tree in the garden, if he was so unsuitable for normal human contact. 

‘Sherlock,’ said Mycroft. He was all wrong, all grown in his suit and tie, still holding his umbrella even as he swung his long legs slightly from where he sat on a nearby branch. He looked both completely out of place, and completely at home. ‘Sherlock you have to come down, now.’

‘Shan’t,’ thought Sherlock, sticking out his tongue.

‘Sherlock, Eric is going to be back at any moment,’ Mycroft said, pulling out his pocket-watch, the chain dangling from his hand. 

‘But I don’t want an MRI!’ said Sherlock, pulling his thin legs up, knees under his chin. He was tense and ready to bolt, ready to bite if necessary. ‘They’re noisy and they hurt and they smell bad.’ He wrinkled his little nose to make a point. 

‘They don’t hurt,’ said Mycroft, peering down through the branches where the voices had gone from wheedling and promising to annoyed and threatening. 

‘They do! The people and the sounds and the smells, they hurt. They cut,’ Sherlock asserted, voice high with his distress. He knew it wouldn’t do any good though, no one ever believed him. Or even worse – they did, and it didn’t seem to matter. ‘Anyway I’m not going back.’ He said it with finality, squeezing his small body as far back as possible. ‘You can’t make me. I’ll run away!’ He bared his teeth. Mycroft gave him a long look, then sighed. 

‘Fine. Stay here for a while, brother mine. Sadly I fear you will be shaken back down from this tree soon enough.’

***************************

John’s shoulder was seizing from his twisted position on the floor but it was working – the thin pin running through the lower hinge was gradually working free. His hands sparkled with tiny shavings of metal and part of him marvelled that his captivity depending on something so small. He was still straining to hear what was happening across the hall, so when he heard footsteps he froze then withdrew backwards into the dark of the closet, wielding the screwdriver as a weapon, discomfort forgotten. He already knew with no shadow of doubt that given the chance, he would kill Eric. Come on, he thought to himself darkly. Give me the chance. 

The footsteps went by at first, but then stopped and returned, slower. 

“Dr. Watson, are you alright in there?” Eric asked, all concern. John gripped the screwdriver tighter and didn’t answer. He could feel himself moving downwards, the core of who he was slowly sinking into a well of oil dragged up from below the Afghani desert. He usually fought against it, this plummet into the cloying dark, but tonight it was welcome. Eric was going to drown in that oil, like so many had before him. The footsteps drew closer, until there was a shadow cutting through the sparse light under the door.

“Ah, you are upset with me. Is it because I told you that you could watch? I can still allow it, if you like. Once we get started and the screaming starts.” John put his free hand down onto the floor for balance, his legs already poised in a crouch as he stared unblinking at the door. His breathing was completely even and unhurried as he waited. 

“No?” Eric continued. “Or is it that I’m going to get there first?” The hated voice dropped to a low purr. “Get inside him, in the way that you could not?” The bright core of John flared slightly then, threatening to ignite the entire well and destroy everything around them, though his physical position and breathing remained unchanged. Eric laughed at his silence. “Pathetic, really. How he must have hated spending time with all of you, you… animals. That’s all you are. Mindless beasts who attack what they don’t understand. Well no more. He’s mine now. He’s going to be mine.” 

The footsteps moved away then, even as John’s eyes narrowed minutely, dangerously, and he crept back out of the dark and towards the promise of light. 

***********************************

“Hello, Sherlock!” came a cheery voice and Sherlock was violently thrown back into his body. He fancied the metal chair rocked in place at the impact, though it was bolted immovable to the floor. Eric was walking towards him. Sherlock peered around him, scanning for Mycroft. No sign of him.

“Oh I’m sorry, am I not holding your attention?” said Eric, noticing his lack of focus. Sherlock missed the presence of his brother keenly and started to retreat again inside his head in search of him, but Eric darted forward to grab his face in one of his large hands. “Hello? Sherlock you are being very rude!” He dug his strong fingers into the right side of Sherlock’s face, the thumb squeezing his cheek on the left. The audible thumping of Sherlock’s heart swelled around them both. Eric gave him one strong, rough shake before forcefully letting go. Sherlock felt the burn around his neck from the treatment. 

“I’m he-ere,” he stuttered out, wincing. 

“Excellent. Let’s keep it that way.” In his free hand was a cloth bundle which he dropped into Sherlock’s lap. He used Sherlock as a table as he pulled out a syringe from it, Sherlock tensed as he couldn’t see what was happening. “Your friend has gone a bit quiet in his cage, by the way,” he said. 

“John-n?” Sherlock said, almost immediately cursing himself for saying something so inane. Eric smiled, setting up the injection.

“Hmm, yes. I was going to let him out to watch the experiment, but now I think I’ll make him wait for the dissection.” At the reminder of the grisly end ahead, Sherlock couldn’t help the fine shudder that passed through him. Eric felt it too, and paused, staring at him. “Are you afraid?” He asked, curiously.

“Y-es,” said Sherlock immediately, unwilling to let Eric distance himself from this. Eric continued to stare at him, but his expression softened slightly at this admission. He reached out with the hand that had previously squeezed Sherlock’s face so hard, to lightly trace what bruises might have begun to blossom there. The green black smell of decay and death lingered around him, its tendrils questing in Sherlock’s direction.

“Don’t be. It will be glorious, I think.” He continued to trace the contours of Sherlock’s face with his free hand and Sherlock stared at him, feeling mesmerized at the change in atmosphere and repulsed by the colors and smells oozing off the man. “I didn’t mean what I said before. I was wrong. You look so good like this, you know,” Eric continued as the odd caress of his fingers moved up and over Sherlock’s shorn head. “So good. Like something more than human.” Sherlock held still but inside, deep down where Eric couldn’t see, he cried out. The touch was delicate but left tracks of decaying ooze in its wake, lingering on his skin as would the trail left by a slug.

‘Don’t touch me!’ he screamed silently, a child’s scream that bounced around the inside of his skull in impotent fear. His heart pounded on, and Eric smiled. 

“Quiet again, hmm? OK let’s get you set up.” He stopped his inspection of Sherlock’s head and went back to the injection, pulling up the sleeve of Sherlock’s hospital gown.  
“You’re doing so well, you know,” he said, prodding the silvery track marks he found curiously. “Maybe because you’ve suffered before. The others were already screaming by now. Especially that little kid.” There was a flash of pain as he chose the injection site and administered it. “I tried that route too, you know. The drugs I mean. Too bad though that ‘just enough’ is the same as ‘too much’.” He withdrew slightly, looking Sherlock over. Sherlock tried to keep still under that assessing gaze, cursing the heart rate monitor for the hundredth time. 

“You have suffered, haven’t you?” Eric asked, coming forward again and cleaning away his supplies. Sherlock’s heart stuttered as he retrieved the bundle from his lap, out of sight. Eric smiled. “Answer me.” Sherlock tried to go for flippant.

“Ther-re have been up-s and downs-s, certainly.”

“Hah! Yes I’m sure there have. But you understand why I’m doing this, don’t you?” He dropped the bundle on the floor. He moved closer, hovering over Sherlock who tried not to flinch away. Eric’s lightly mocking smile turned predatory. “You know how important it is,” he said, laying one hand on Sherlock’s chest, “to understand how something works?” Sherlock wondered then if it was indeed possible for a human heart to beat right out of a chest, as that large intruding hand moved fractionally downwards, pushing, pressure, unwanted. 

“Cheswell wanted to understand you too, you know,” Eric continued, ignoring Sherlock’s silence in favor of tilting his head and listening to his accelerated, stuttering heartbeat. “He wanted to understand your body. You must have noticed?” The horrible hand reached Sherlock’s navel, even as his other came up to grip Sherlock’s left shoulder in a possessive embrace. To his shame, Sherlock could not hold in a gasp of upset as his breathing sped out of control.

‘Myc!’ he cried in his mind, but there was no answer. Mercifully the lower hand stopped, stroking over his stomach, but Eric’s face remained there mere inches from his own face.  
“Cheswell wanted your body, but I wanted your mind,” said Eric. The enemy hand moved in gentle circles over his stomach, and Sherlock was just about ready to throw up in his captor's face. “I do understand why though. Look at you. Tied up like this, you’re like a gift.” He moved his head forward, smiling at the cacophony of Sherlock’s heart coming from above them. Sherlock felt his breath on his face and stilled completely in frozen horror. “You’re something unique. A rare species brought into captivity.” Eric kissed his forehead then, and Sherlock fought to contain a whimper of primal fear as he imagined what more was coming. Eric pulled back and looked at him again, staring into his eyes, flicking his gaze back and forth to Sherlock’s mouth where his breath was coming in shallow, frightened gasps. He smiled a dark smile and moved in to kiss him again, on the lips.

A moment of silence from the audio system, then:

“Aargh!” Eric cried, but the sound was muffled. He struggled, half on Sherlock’s lap, as Sherlock bit into his bottom lip as hard as he possible could. Sherlock tasted coppery blood that overrode all his senses and the almost-feral little boy in the oak tree on the lawn whooped in delighted satisfaction even as the rage in his heart screamed over the speakers. 

‘Don’t let go, Sherlock,” said Mycroft warningly from nearby, but then Eric’s hands were at his throat, pushing the ropes further in to his windpipe, cutting off the air. Sherlock hung on as long as he could and when he was finally forced to release that intruding lip he gave his teeth a final grind for good measure. 

Eric reared back, howling in pain and fury, sounding like a demon summoned into being, blood streaming down his chin and neck in bright thick rivulets. He staggered, clutching at his mouth, then stared for a moment at the blood on his hands as if he could not believe what had just happened. He looked at Sherlock then, looked almost emotionless and utterly inhuman as he stepped towards him. Eric’s blood in Sherlock’s mouth tasted like it had come from a corpse, and Sherlock took the deepest breath he was able in order to spit it back in Eric's face as soon as he was within range. Eric howled again, a sound dragged from the very corners of the world, advanced and backhanded Sherlock in the face with enough force to turn his head against the rope. Stars erupted in front of Sherlock's eyes and he tasted blood again – his blood: his teeth had cut into his cheek. His neck was on fire from friction burn and he felt the skin there erupt in pained weeping. He blinked long and slow, then turned back to see Eric raising his hand again.

They both flinched at a new sound – a crashing, splintering sound from the direction of the hallway. John! Sherlock couldn’t help it, a wild hope burst into life in his cold chest even as he feared for what Eric was going to do next. Eric was frozen for a moment, fist still raised, completely deranged. Then in one heart-stopping moment he grabbed both sides of Sherlock’s face and leaned in.

“You can start without us,” he snarled, then whirled away and out of the metal room. He slammed the door which locked again automatically. Sherlock saw him hit a control and almost immediately was hit with an electric shock that was there and gone in an instant, leaving him mewling like an abandoned kitten. 

‘Eyes up, Sherlock,’ said Mycroft. Eric left the control room, disappearing from view, and Sherlock dragged his head around so he could see the TV in the lab again, his throat in agony. The fractal pattern was moving now, ever so slowly, spinning as Sherlock knew it could forever. Fractals were beautiful infinite patterns that you could follow without end – but from Eric’s description, in this case there would be an end. Sherlock wriggled his wrists again, mistakenly looking down at his left and getting another shock for his trouble. The pain was intense and he let out another choked off cry even as he raised his eyes again to the TV screen. He shivered all over and tried to keep tracking the pattern. 

‘That’s it,’ said Mycroft. He sounded a little softer than previously. ‘Keep watching. That’s all you need to do.’ 

‘But it’s speeding up,’ thought Sherlock, eyes watering. He had detected a minute change in the movement of the pattern as it moved fractionally faster. 

‘Yes. I fear it will continue to do so until you are released.’ Mycroft sounded at least a little regretful. There were more crashing sounds from the hallway, and was that shouting as well? The pattern continued to move.

‘What if I can’t keep up?’ said Sherlock, twin tears glossing over eyes too afraid to move. He blinked lightning fast to clear them and avoid a shock. They dripped, hot and slow, working their way down his cold cheeks.

‘Can’t keep up?’ scoffed Mycroft, incredulous. ‘My brother, Sherlock Holmes, not keep up? Don’t be ridiculous.’ Mycroft seemed mightily offended by the very idea. Sherlock took heart a little from that, even as the frame-rate changed again and the image moved a little faster. It seemed quiet outside now – he couldn’t hear anything aside from his own too-fast breathing and amplified heart-beat.

‘What if no-one’s coming?’ Sherlock thought, even the ghost of the words quiet in his mind as he admitted this deep, shameful fear.

‘As impossible as it is for you to leave John Watson, do you still think it probable that he could leave you now?’ Mycroft asked in return. For a tiny second, there was a doubt. Like a child’s spinning toy, it wavered along with Sherlock’s heartbeat, before falling resolutely in one direction. 

No, John Watson would not leave him here. Not a sliver of a chance. And if Eric thought he had picked an easy mark in the mild-mannered doctor, he was in for a rude awakening.

The images on the screen increased in speed again and Sherlock focused on them more intently now, engaging his brain rather than passively seeing. He closed his mouth and let his breathing even out as he inhaled and exhaled purposefully through his nose. John was taking care of whatever was going on out there, so it was his job now to sort out whatever was going on in here, and survive.

So Eric, you want to see what my mind can do, do you? He thought, feeling all the processing power that caused him so many problems in life click into place and hum, ready. He smiled grimly at the spinning images.

Be careful what you wish for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers! I had to go back and fix two things in prior chapters - 1) gadolinium is injected and 2) ropes not zip-ties. If you did not notice these inconsistencies then bless you and ignore this haha!
> 
> Rest assured, the 'BAMF John' tag is going to be liberally employed very very soon. 
> 
> Kudos and comments always welcome, I love hearing what you think! *mwah*


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the tags.

John had carefully lifted the first pin out of the hinge then got straight to work on the second. It was important not to start celebrating prematurely – the enemy was close by but he didn’t have him in his sights yet. The battle-ready clarity of thought that he had entered into had brought a lot of answers: the identity of the killer, how he must be stopped at all costs, how John must get to Sherlock and never leave his side again. Everything was very simple, now that he had surrendered himself to this moment. No doubt, no sentiment, no wavering. There was only one bright filament of fate stretching out from his chest and he would follow it without further hesitation. A far far distant part of him wondered if this was how Sherlock felt all the time, but he set it aside. Now was not the time, but it would come.

He had maneuvered the second pin halfway out when the peace was damaged by a scream of agony – but not Sherlock. John laughed to himself, a sound of no humour, marveling at how his partner was fighting on, still. Time to join him.

He backed away from the door and then ran at it full-force. The door offered no more resistance as it fell beneath him, taking half of the frame with it and sending splinters flying. John was reminded of the previous evening – crashing through Sherlock’s bedroom door, terrified of losing him. Apparently it was his lot in life to remove any barrier that came between them. He pulled himself to his feet, gripping again the screwdriver, now with the handle upside down in his right palm and the metal spoke of it pointed up towards his elbow. He paused, listening to various doors open and close, happy that his prey had decided to come to him.

Eric rounded the corner and Captain Watson felt a dark swoop of victory pass through him at the sight of him – clearly in agony, wounded, Eric was covered in his own blood and beyond agitated. Dr. Watson was down at the bottom of the oil well and therefore had nothing to say on the matter. However John only allowed himself one moment to cast his critical eye over his opponent before he sprung at him – two hours of confined frustration erupted out in the form of a deadly pounce that sent Eric flat on his back with John crouching fully on top of him, feet and all. Neither man spoke a word, eyes only intent on each other, and to his credit Eric recovered quickly from his surprise.

John pulled back his right hand, intending to use the screwdriver, when Eric aimed a lucky punch at his bad shoulder. John grunted, losing momentum and Eric took advantage to twist, dislodging him, aiming another punch to John’s face. John raised his left arm but he still caught the edge of the blow to his chin and it span him around, allowing Eric to curl back one leg and kick him in the ribs, snarling. The wind knocked out of him, John floundered for a moment before turning fully onto his back to be faced with the muzzle of his own gun being pointed right in his face. Eric was kneeling on one leg next to him, panting with exertion, his eyes two dark pits into nothing. John wondered if he looked at all similar.

“Enough!” rasped Eric. They stared at each other for a strange moment then. John had lived this moment before, many times, on the battlefield. The weighty moment when you know you are about to start a journey, or to end one.

“Enough,” Eric said again, with finality.

The word sent more blood flowing from his lip and he tried to stem the flow with his free hand – mistake. Eric fired the gun where John had been a millisecond prior, just as John pulled his right hand around in an arc to stab him straight through the foot with the screwdriver - the whole force of his spinning body behind the blow. If the floor had been made of wood, he would have shattered it. Eric grunted with pain, stunned, and John twisted again, his back to Eric, slamming his elbow back into the man’s crotch then throwing his head back and up to smack him hard under the chin. He dimly registered pain in his own head but he heard the crunch meaning at least something in the skull above him was broken. He grabbed at the gun in Eric’s hand, twisting the weakening fingers and prying it free. Eric slumped over, torso trying to protect his wounded crotch and hands fluttering over his face, more blood falling from between his fingers. John checked the gun chamber with military precision – one shot left - then aimed it back at his assailant. Eric was making unintelligible noises now, but John didn’t care to examine them. Eric had sealed his own fate. John aimed for his chest.

Eric moved so quickly the next few seconds passed in a blur. He dodged, the bullet grazing his side, one hand down on the floor and legs swinging around to kick John in the ankles. John reacted purely on instinct, jumping over Eric’s legs and cracking him over the back of the head with the barrel of the empty gun. The crack of metal on bone was as loud as the shot had been. Eric crumpled, finally going still. John realized his own breathing had sped out of control – his calm ruthless demeanour was being battered away by shock. He stared down at Eric who was unmoving, face down on the floor, blood pooling under his head and torso from multiple wounds. He looked dead, but John wasn’t sure. He certainly didn’t seem an immediate threat. John put the gun in the waistband of his jeans then stepped away towards the door to the MRI machine. He walked, very slowly, toward the metal door, keeping his eyes on the motionless figure. The light coming from the MRI room reflected grotesquely on Eric’s wounds, and he was utterly still. John could hear a heartbeat being played through the speaker system in the room beyond, racing almost as fast as his own. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, John decided to go for Sherlock and in one swift motion he was through the door to the control room, intending to immediately block it behind him.

But… Sherlock!

John was frozen in place for a second as he took in the sight through the window into the small experimental lab. That… that couldn’t be Sherlock! He had only seen him three hours ago, it just wasn’t possible! He staggered over to lean over the control panel and put both palms on the glass. The figure inside was wearing a hospital gown and was bound – wrists, neck and ankles – to the metal chair that he himself had sat on a few days ago. The left side of the face that he could see had a large purple bruise forming on the cheek – the sculpted high cheek that he knew so well. There was blood on his chin and neck. But the most startling change was his head – bald, shaved clean and covered in angry red scratches that could be seen from between the electrodes stuck to weeping, inflamed skin.

A black rage more primal than John had ever felt before ripped through him from toes to scalp, drawn up from the ground beneath their feet. He must have made some noise though he wasn’t aware as the figure’s – Sherlock’s? – eyes flicked towards him. Then he suddenly twitched and cried out, head jerking as if in sudden pain and turned his eyes away again.

But it was enough. For a second, John had seen the grey green eyes of his best friend, seen him through the confusion and pain and fear and knew that Sherlock had seen through it all to him, too.

“I’ll get you out of here,” John vowed out loud without thought, and fancied he heard the thumping heart beat steady slightly while he looked down at the controls.

Suddenly, the controls came up to meet him. He felt his chin crack on the edge of the console and tasted blood in his mouth as his feet were violently pulled backwards out from under him. John’s hands swept over the controls on his way down, random items falling with him and not fast enough to break his fall.

“John!” he heard Sherlock yell, then his voice turned into a yelp again as he must have had another electric shock. He kicked back at his attacker, getting a look over his shoulder at the mangled face of Eric, who was crawling towards and over him and using John’s own body as leverage. He had another gun! John cursed himself as he had not realized that there were two in play, even as Eric’s aim wavered on its own accord and a shot went wide and upwards. Eric could barely see through the blood all over his face, streaming from his head would and matting his hair down. John reached out blindly, keeping his eyes trained on the gruesome visage, realising in horror that the soft fluff he was searching through was in fact Sherlock’s stolen hair. That realization gave him another burst of adrenalin and he managed to knee Eric in the throat as his left hand finally grasped something useful. Eric surged upwards, coughing, red gaze intent and John tensed his stomach to surge upwards as well, bringing his left hand around and stabbing Eric in the chest with the item he had blindly found. Scissors. A pair of silver hair scissors. He let go and the scissors stayed embedded in Eric’s chest even as the man dropped the second gun and looked down in astonishment, staring at the silver handles his chest had just sprouted.

“Sherlock!” came a shout, and both Eric and John stared at each other, puzzled. John lurched forwards, head aching, pushing Eric back to sit against the opposite wall and retrieving the gun from the floor. Eric offered no resistance.

“Sherlock?” The control room door opened and John tensed, gun aim stead.

“John, whoah it’s me! Steady there!” It was Lestrade. John stared at him, bemused. It was as if two realities had collided and he was left not knowing which one he was supposed to be in. Lestrade nudged the door further open, gesturing at John to lower the weapon, and John couldn’t think of a reason why not, so he did. Nothing seemed to make any sense anymore, and he could hear his heart pounding as if it were being amplified…

No, that wasn’t right. Not his heart. Sherlock’s! He gasped, lurching to his feet and thrusting the gun towards Lestrade who was now warily inspecting the conscious but immobile Eric. Lestrade took it and John turned back to the controls, but… no! The wide shot had obviously hit the control panel. Even as he watched there was a spark across it, and various readouts were flickering and flashing out of control. The screen displaying the brain scan kept clicking on and off, though from what he could see of the lab itself, whatever program had been started was still running.

“What the hell is going… oh my god,” breathed Lestrade, standing next to John and staring through the glass. “That’s…”

“Sherlock. We have to turn this off,” said John, hearing something frantic in his own voice. He tried switching some of the buttons in front of him, but there was no change. Lestrade cursed and went for the metal door, but John knew it was no use as the electromagnetic lock held firm.

“Too late,” came a breathy voice from the floor. Both John and Lestrade turned, staring at Eric. Donovan was there, cuffing his hands in front of him, gingerly moving his blood-stuck limbs as he appeared unable to do so himself.

“How do we stop it?” asked John, in a voice belonging to someone else. Eric coughed, and shrugged minutely.

“Y’can’t,” he said. “It’ll keep goin’, now. Beyon’ limits of human endurance. He’ll die.” Donovan had rocked back on her heels away from the quiet pronouncement, even she unwilling to stay too close to evil.

“John, what’s happening to Sherlock?” asked Lestrade with some desperation. John blinked, stumbling slightly. The blows from fighting with Eric and the crack to his jaw were making themselves known.

“It’s… it’s some kind of MRI, some new kind of MRI, but he’s… I dunno really, he’s got it set up to cause pain as well.”

“Measuring-g input-s”, came a voice. An exhausted, pained, wonderful voice.

“Sherlock!” cried John, some of the fog clearing again. “You can hear us!”

“Obvious-sly,” Sherlock scoffed softly, though he didn’t move or turn to look at them. John noted the stutter with some alarm. Seemingly reading John’s mind, he said, “If-f I look away from-m the screen in here, I get shocked-d.” There was a pause as he gasped for breath, obviously struggling. “The MRI is-s measuring how-w I pr-process the inform-mation.” Another pause filled with agonised pants. “And-d I’m-m really cold-d.” He added the last almost as an afterthought, sounding afronted.

“Jesus,” breathed Lestrade. “Alright you, how do we get him out of there?” John watched him crouch down and jab Eric in the chest to jolt him to alertness. “Donovan, call for an ambulance or two, will you?” Donovan nodded, her face pale, and left the room.

“Can’t,” said Eric. He seemed… peaceful. Like nothing in the world could trouble him anymore. John doubted he would need that ambulance, as he watched yet more blood flow from the scissors still embedded in his chest. “S’working though. Look. Beautiful.” He was staring at the screen that displayed the scan going on of Sherlock’s brain patterns.

John gaped.

“Is that… is that normal?” asked Lestrade, seeing John’s expression. John opened and closed his mouth a couple times, no idea how to reply.

“Argh!” A cry from Sherlock who must have been shocked once again. “John!” It was more of a whine than a cry. John heard so much meaning in it.

“Sherlock it’s going to be OK, we are getting you out.”

“I can’t… owwww… I can’t do-do it!” Sherlock gasped.

“Yes you can!” John shouted, reaching over and banging his hand on the glass. “Just hang on!” The banging was at a counterpoint to the audio of Sherlock’s heartbeat.

“He’s gone further than the others now,” whispered Eric, staring adoringly at the scan on the screen. “Look at that,” he continued, genuine wonder in his voice. “Beautiful.”

*************************

Another shock, and Sherlock couldn’t help it, he squeezed his eyes shut even as he was overloaded with pain. Had to get away!

“Sherlock, no! Open your eyes!” He writhed, wanting to escape that voice, didn’t want to hear such disappointment from his friend, his John. The pain on his scalp developed into a white-hot halo, almost so intense as to go beyond the concept of pain. He let out a long, low sound of agony, like the sound of a dog when hit by a car. “Sherlock! Please!” John cried, and he sounded so, so desperate, so, so miserable, that Sherlock could not but comply. He wrenched his eyes open and immediately groaned as the spinning spirals sped up again. They were going so fast now he couldn’t track them – it was just a blur of colour whirling in front of him. His analytical brain was desperately trying to either catalogue what it was seeing or block it out, and was succeeding at neither. Everything hurt, and a bone-deep weariness was passing over him. He was reminded of the store of quotes that he kept in the palace, though there was one he could not recall the origin of: ‘Is not all life pathetic and futile? We reach. We grasp. And what is left in our hands at the end? A shadow. Or worse than a shadow – misery.’

“I can’t-t do it-t, Myc,” he confessed, though Mycroft was not there.

“Sherlock? Who are you… Sherlock please just hang on a little longer!” called John. Dear John.

“Sherlock we have techs on their way here right now and they’ll get you out of this,” said Lestrade, but Sherlock could hear the lie. Lestrade didn’t think they would arrive in time. Neither did Sherlock.

“It’s alright-t,” he said, exhausted. It came out very quietly against the backdrop of his heart. “It’s’s alright, John-n.”

“You stop that!” shouted John, angry. Sherlock couldn’t see him but he could picture him – Dr. and Captain Watson, often together but sometimes apart, both united now and at all times when John was at his emotional limit. John wanted him to keep fighting, and he hated to disappoint him, but he was just so tired, and he hurt so much.

“Can’t-t help it-t, John,” he whispered, yelping again at another shock. They were coming faster now as his eyes just could not keep up with tracking the images, it was impossible. “Got-t to stop-p this-s now.” He said, the sound like a sigh. He was disappointed though. Disappointed that he wouldn’t get to feel John’s arms around him, one more time. It made him sad. And all those adventures they were going to have! It wasn’t fair, not at all.

“No! You are the one who always goes on about how smart you are, how you think differently! You are not giving up now! You are not leaving me!” John’s voice broke on the last words and Sherlock heard Lestrade mumble something, glad that the man was there to comfort his friend when he could not.

“Have to say-y goodb-bye, now, John,” he said, preparing to finally let his eyes close and let the now ever-present halo of pain whisk him away, back to the oak tree on the lawn at Musgrave Hall, for as long as it remained standing.

“No!” John screamed in anguish, and there was a dull thunk as he must have thrown something large and heavy at the window – possibly the chair. Sherlock turned his head slightly automatically, trying to discern what had happened, the shocks blurring into one hum of painful input as he did so.

“He can move his head!” cried Donovan’s voice. She sounded… different. Sherlock would not have expected that much emotion from her in these circumstances.

“But won’t he still get shocked?” asked Lestrade. John ignored them both, calling out,

“Sherlock! Sherlock, don’t look at the screen, look at me!” Sherlock sighed like a put-upon child. He didn’t want an MRI! Once he was back in his tree he was never, ever coming down.

“Sherlock, come on! You will fight this and you will beat it and you will win because you are Sherlock bloody Holmes and you are extraordinary! Now LOOK AT ME!”

Sherlock was never able to deny John for long. Unable to breathe deeply, he summoned reserves from who-knew-where and turned his head around to the left to look at the window keeping him from John. The rope burned at his neck and the electrodes burned at his scalp, but by this point it had all ceased to matter. There was a filter of green to his vision now, the whisper of friendly leaves around his ears. Looking at John was no great trial now, not here, at the end. He fixed his eyes upon John as he had fixed his eyes upon the fractal patterns, and found as much input there as he had before. John was bruised, and sad, and hurting. He was staring at Sherlock as if he had the answer to some question, an answer he desperately needed, but Sherlock didn’t know what it was. Under the sadness though, he looked strong, and capable. My John, thought Sherlock, eyes roving over his face, the pain and everything else fading away. My John will be alright.

****************************

John felt as a rare butterfly pinned in place, when the force of that inquisitive gaze connected with him through the glass. Sherlock’s neck was badly chafed and he must be in incredible pain from the shocks, but after connecting with John’s face he seemed to calm. The grimace of suffering faded away until there was only his usual look of concentration. What are you? It seemed to say. What are you, under all of that? John had thought once Sherlock looked at him that he would keep on goading him, force him to keep his eyes open and stay with them, but his own voice was lost and he knew at that moment, unnecessary. The heartbeat that had been thundering and stuttering with arrhythmia became a calm, slow thumping as Sherlock gazed over the space separating them.

“Wait what… what’s happening?” asked Donovan. John didn’t want to look away from Sherlock but there was something in her tone that made him glance at the scan screen. He gasped.

“That’s not possible!” came Eric’s voice, and John had to restrain himself from kicking him. Eric coughed, thick clots spilling down his chest as he became agitated again, also staring at the screen. “No… it can’t be…” his head fell to the side and his breathing stopped, one last trickle making its way down his chin. His dead gaze was still fixed on the screen, incredulous even in death. John span away, linking eyes again with Sherlock, though the latter was obviously fading too.

“John? John, what the hell is going on?” cried Lestrade.

Suddenly there was a lessening of the general noise around them. The main light above them turned off, emergency green lights taking their place. The screen in the lab turned off as well and Sherlock gave a soft happy sigh as the shocks must also have stopped, his eyes falling closed. John felt an unpleasant lurch in his chest. The screen displaying the brain scan froze on the final image.

Then all at once three things happened: Sherlock’s head fell sideways as he gave one more soft exhalation and went completely still, the door separating him from John clicked and swung open, and the background heart beat that had echoed over the monitors since this nightmare began suddenly gave way - to silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone know where the quote is from? Virtual cookies if you do!
> 
> As always, I'd love to hear what you think and if you are enjoying the story. Much love!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the tags.

There was a momentary frozen tableau as everyone reacted to the sudden lack of sound, a wave of cold air that hit and rolled over them all from the lab, then John was bolting through the open door to kneel at Sherlock’s side.

“No, no no no…” John muttered, half to himself and half to the figure on the chair. He lifted Sherlock’s head, tried to get his fingers between his grime-covered throat and the rope, but it was too tight. He put his ear next to Sherlock’s mouth and tried to listen, unsure if he could hear or feel a breath due to his own rush of adrenalin. “Help me,” he said softly, this time to Lestrade, Sherlock, anyone who would listen. Louder, “Help me, please!” Lestrade was there, working the large knot of the rope with his hands. Donovan was nowhere to be seen.

“Is he alive?” asked Lestrade, trying to get his fingers into the knot. John barely heard him – there was now a ringing in his ears. He was holding Sherlock’s head up, trying to keep his airway clear, his training and experience coming to the fore, but he was also transfixed by the injuries in front of him, petrified. This was not a faceless soldier or random civilian victim. This was someone that held pieces of John together, and had since they’d met.

John shook his head slightly trying to clear it, but the eerie calm being locked in the closet, prepared for battle, had gone. He could barely see what was happening in front of him. Sherlock was cold to the touch and utterly unresponsive, liquid covering his chin and chest. The green glow of the emergency lights leeched all colour from the scene. They couldn’t get the knots off. They couldn’t get the electrodes off. They couldn’t get him out.

He’s gone, thought John, a dark chasm opening up in front of him, swallowing everything else in the room.

“John!” barked Lestrade. “Snap out of it!” John flinched, careful not to jostle Sherlock’s head, and then the bright lights turned back in a surge of electricity that left them both stunned and squinting. He saw that Lestrade had managed to get the first part of the knot loosened and was trying to work the second part. John glanced around – there was the new officer standing by the door, keeping it open but looking haggard.

“Find us a knife or something, will you?” Lestrade snapped. The tall man cowered slightly, then wedged the door open with the lab chair and left. Donovan came in to replace him, breathless.

“Good, it worked,” she gasped, striding over and immediately getting to work on the rope around Sherlock’s left hand. “Damn, look at the state of his wrists!”

“What worked, Sally?” asked Lestrade, the second knot loosening. Then he turned and said, “John we can take this one off, now.” John stared at him, uncomprehending. Take… off…? Then he looked at the knot. It was undone! They could get Sherlock free!

Sound and life seemed to come roaring back and threatened to knock him over like a feather in the wind.

“Ok, um… OK. Greg, hold his head, we need to take the rope off slowly, it’s stuck to his skin.” Greg nodded and they transferring support of Sherlock’s head to him, like one would a new-born baby. John warmed as he saw how gently the DI treated his friend though he watched him like a hawk.

“Sally?” Lestrade asked. Donovan looked up from where she was grappling with the large knot, frustration all over her face.

“The electrics, sir. I went and turned off the power at the junction along the hall, then turned it back on. Thought it might stop the machine and open the door. Damnit it’s freezing in here!” John listened to Donovan, hateful nasty Donovan, as she explained her quick thinking to try and save Sherlock’s life. He wondered how many people Sally helped that he never got to hear about, even as he began to ease the rope from around Sherlock’s long neck. Lestrade held his head steady, completely still and stable. The bruises on the neck thankfully weren’t deep, but the friction burns were weeping and now a mess of rope fibres and fluid. Once he had half of the rope free, John rested his fingers against his friend’s neck, unable to hope yet.

“Great work, Sally. How is he doing, John?” Lestrade asked, staring intently at where John’s fingers touched the wounded skin.

“He’s…”

Sherlock suddenly drew in a whispering breath, his eyelids fluttering lightly.

“He’s alive!” John gasped, swaying where he stood.

“Oh thank Christ,” said Donovan, returning to her task with renewed vigour. Her relief was palpable and John once again had a moment of total unreality.

“Alright then Dr. Watson, let’s keep him that way,” said Lestrade, and John centred himself, reaching for his inner calm and hoping it would stay this time.

“Right.” John said decidedly, raking his eyes over the injuries and checking again that Sherlock was breathing. “OK we get this off his throat first, then you need to keep a hold of his head while we get the rest of the ropes off. Don’t touch those electrodes yet,” he said, gesturing at the round disks spaced around Sherlock’s skull, each ringed with a thin line of angry red burn and sticky residue.

The other officer returned then and handed what looked like a bone saw to Donovan. “Here, I’ll go find some more,” he said. He hesitated, clearly disturbed by the state of Sherlock, then caught John’s eyes and made a swift retreat. John eased the rest of the thick rope carefully off Sherlock’s neck, dropping it on the floor. Donovan was carefully pulling the bone saw through the rope securing Sherlock’s left wrist, aiming for the metal arm of the chair lest she make a mistake. “Don’t just pull the rope off when you’re done,” said John, and Donovan nodded in assent without looking up.

John looked back at Sherlock’s face. The eyelids fluttered again, and a crease appeared between his eyebrows. His mouth was slightly open and his lips were trembling: John could see each intake of breath, each exhale. John leaned forward to look more closely then as he realised something, confused. There was no wound on Sherlock’s mouth. His chin and upper chest were covered with congealing blood, and from the look of his swollen cheek there might be a cut on the inside of it, but nothing that would create this much mess…

John’s eyes widened as the realisation hit him. This wasn’t due to an injury of Sherlock’s. It was Eric’s blood. Eric’s blood, from Eric’s split lip. But no, not a split lip – a bitten lip. Eric had… had… and Sherlock, brave, helpless Sherlock, had done the only thing he could do to defend himself.

Sherlock was not physical at all with people he didn’t know – barely even with those he did know. Sherlock pulled away from most contact, especially when he was tired and upset. When he was hurt, he would usually hide it and escape away to his room, no matter how much it drove John crazy. He was like a street cat in that way. How scared he must have been, to not be able to get away. How… violated…

What else had Eric done?

“You OK?” asked Donovan, looking from Sherlock’s face to his.

John wanted to say, I’ll kill him. I’ll kill Eric. There was no need for thoughts of torture or clever speeches or other recriminations: the man just needed to be erased. But Eric was dead, John had seen him die, because he had already killed him. Realities seemed to collide again. John had killed him, and he was not sorry. He would do it again in a heartbeat for what had been done to Sherlock.

How DARE he?

He blinked, coming back to himself as Donovan’s question registered, and turned to her, unsure of what to say. As he looked, the rope she was working on came free, and he moved to gently peel it away from the arm, not answering. The skin on the wrist was just as bad if not worse than on the neck, and the bruises deeper. Sherlock had clearly struggled with everything he had. John couldn’t help it – he picked up the limp forearm and held the cold hand, just held it between his own hands, brought it up to hold tucked under his aching chin for a moment, closed his eyes and breathed. He had never been this demonstrative with Sherlock, never ever, and never thought he would be. They were friends. The closest friends. And John was sure that if his friend Sherlock had died, John would never, ever have recovered.

“J’hn?”

John snapped his eyes open and saw Sherlock’s peeking back at him. His friend’s eyelids were obviously heavy and he was having trouble focusing, but he was there. Donovan moved tactfully around John to start on the other wrist.

“I’m here Sherlock,” John said, still holding that cold hand and feeling no compunction at all to let it go. He felt the fingers flex slightly between his hands, but gently held on even so. Sherlock squinted at him then seemed to let it go. His eyes flicked from side to side and upwards, a trace of alarm ghosting his features as he tried to make out what was happening. “It’s Lestrade, Sherlock, he’s helping hold your head up.” Sherlock relaxed again, then gingerly leaned forwards. Lestrade looked at John for confirmation, and slowly let Sherlock take the weight himself. It was like watching a concerned father let go of his child’s bicycle for the first time, waiting to see if he would ride, or fall. Sherlock seemed to manage it, as he then rolled his neck ever so slightly, wincing even as he started to shiver. Donovan went on slicing through the rope on his other wrist. Sherlock peered at her, the picture of confusion.

“D’nov’n?”

She glanced up, pausing.

“Yeah. I’m just as surprised as you,” she said, offering a brief smile and eye-roll.

“Jeffries, what is taking so long?” Lestrade shouted towards the door but remained hovering behind Sherlock, obviously ready to help if he fell unconscious again. The officer appeared again, flustered, holding some office scissors.

“Sorry sir, everything is locked up.” Lestrade took the scissors from him.

“Right, find where these wires go and unplug them so I can cut through. We don’t want any more surprises!” said Lestrade and the man retreated again, following the electrode wires.

“John-n.” Sherlock said softly. John smiled at him, then watched Jeffries as he found where the electrodes met the wall and yanked them out in one violent pull. Lestrade nodded in thanks, then started to cut each wire attached to Sherlock’s head, leaving an inch sticking up like some kind of cyber-punk haircut.

“J’hn?” Sherlock called again and wriggled the fingers in John’s grip to get his attention. John immediately looked at him, contrite.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m here. It’s alright.” John mustered his courage and properly looked at his friend. Not at the wounds, not at the signs of breathing, not at the wires around him, just at him. The familiar multi-coloured eyes locked with his, and John felt himself calming down for the first time since the door had opened.

“S’loud, John-n.” Sherlock said quietly, teeth chattering slightly, not looking away.

“Loud?” asked Donovan. The second wrist bond was free, and she mimicked what she had seen John do, easing it away and moving on to the ankles. “There isn’t any noise.” She said, worriedly.

“Yes there is,” said John quietly. The fingers on the hand he was holding rippled in thanks and Sherlock smiled tiredly, obviously glad he understood. “How can I help? I mean – help make it quiet?” Sherlock shrugged and continued to look at him: calm but confused, a faint smile appearing. He was obviously at the end of his strength and seemed content to let John take care of things. John thought carefully. “Is… is this helping?” He asked, squeezing Sherlock’s hand again. He got a relieved sigh in response and a lethargic slow blink. Lestrade crouched down next to Donovan to work on the last ankle knot with the office scissors. John wondered what to do next. Sherlock was still smiling, now with a sort of fond amusement finding its way onto the wan face.

It’s obvious, John.

“OK,” he said, drawing in courage. “OK, then… what about this?” He reached forward towards Sherlock’s forehead with one hand, just as he had done before when Sherlock was kneeling in the remains of his own bedroom door. That bruise had faded, the hair was gone, and an ache of upset reappeared in his gut at the difference. That… that monster, had cut off Sherlock’s hair, like he was some kind of doll! Had he held him down when he did it? Had Sherlock fought for every curl and lock?

He breathed deeper and let his fingertips trail over the skin, trying not to let the anger overpower him. Sherlock closed his eyes, emitted a little humming sound, and his faint smile grew stronger. “I take it that’s a yes,” said John, happier now as well, and Sherlock’s eyes flicked back up to meet his in shared amusement. Apparently, this was OK. John let his fingers move naturally, trailing them down the side of Sherlock’s face, Sherlock gazing back utterly trusting and content. He slid his fingers around one ear, letting his palm cradle a bruised cheek, and just let it rest there. John marvelled at himself – he had never done anything like this before. Not with past lovers and certainly not with his friends. Gently cupping his friend’s wounded face, holding his Sherlock’s hand against his own throat and allowing that inquisitive and somehow innocent gaze to look as deep as it wanted to look, right through his eyes and into the wells and deserts beyond – it was the most intimate moment of John’s life.

“Done!” cried Lestrade in triumph, as he and Donovan stood back up. Sherlock’s smile twitched as John didn’t react at all.

“John?” he said. He nudged his cheek into John’s hand like a cat to get his attention again. John blinked, non-plussed for a moment. He was going to need to get checked for a concussion, he knew. Or shock. Or both.

“John-n. Col-d.”

Cold!

“Right. Greg, let’s get him out of this chair and down to the floor. Someone go find some blankets, and his clothes!” It barely registered to John that everyone immediately moved to do as they were told, leaving only he, Sherlock and Lestrade in the room. He let go of Sherlock’s face and hand and Sherlock made a small noise of discontent but continued to watch him, still a bit too calm for John’s liking. “Sherlock I’m going to lift you up under the arms then bring you down to the floor, OK? Greg will get your legs.” Sherlock nodded as if this was an everyday occurrence, eyes drooping, the wires still connected to his head bobbing theatrically. John leaned forward and threaded his arms under Sherlock’s armpits, wrapping around his back and pulling him close. Sherlock was absolutely frozen to the touch, and now John could feel the fine trembling of his torso against his own, his worry fully returned. He felt Sherlock lay his head on his shoulder, breath puffing softly against his neck. Shaking arms snaked around him, a weak grip pulled at the back of his jacket. “OK?” John whispered to the shaved scalp next to him, squeezing the tired body gently. He received a gentle squeeze in return. “Alright Greg, to my left, on three. One, two, three!” He lifted Sherlock off the metal chair and Lestrade manoeuvred his legs until they had Sherlock laying on the floor, his eyes closed again. John carefully let go of him even though his every impulse advised against it, and Sherlock started to shiver more violently, teeth clattering together. He pulled his arms weakly up to his chest in a failed attempt to get warmer, eyes screwed tightly shut.

“Blankets!” John barked towards the door and started taking off his jacket. Lestrade jumped up at the command to go and aid with the search. John draped his jacket over Sherlock’s torso. Sherlock opened his eyes to peer at him, but quickly shut them again, a faint yowling sound of pain escaping his lips and apparently beyond his control. “Sherlock? I’m sorry, more help is coming. What hurts?” Again the eyes opened, but now they were glazed with tears. John’s heart skipped a beat. Sherlock did not cry! “Sherlock, please, what is it?”

“Loud. Hurts-s. Cold-d.” Sherlock whispered out from between pale lips. “S’rry.” He looked dejected as a tear escaped to run unchecked down the side of his face. At the sight of it, John decided that he just needed to stop thinking and go with his gut. He scooted around so Sherlock’s head was on the floor in front of him, put his arms under him then slid forward even as he drew Sherlock back and up. He was exhausted and aching all over, but he managed to get one leg on either side of his shivering friend, supporting the weight of his torso. Sherlock’s head was propped against his chest, cheek and nose against his neck, wires pricking into John’s skin, and John pulled his jacket up to cover them both. He wrapped his arms over Sherlock’s, rubbing slightly to warm them. He had purposefully done all of this without looking at Sherlock’s expression, knowing that if he doubted himself or left too much room for thought, either one of them would resist taking such a step. He let Sherlock settle and get used to the idea and waited, incredibly nervous, for his reaction.

Sherlock said nothing. At first he seemed like a marionette, letting John shift their positions around completely passively. After a few moments and perhaps realizing that John wasn’t going to say anything, he shifted in John’s arms, hesitant. John remained quiet, only flexing his arms slightly so that Sherlock knew he was paying attention. Sherlock stilled again at the movement, waiting. Adjusting. They continued on like this – tentative movements followed by moments of stillness, until John thought he was either going to explode from tension or cry at the way Sherlock was accepting him into his personal space.

“Better?” He asked softly. Sherlock started slightly, perhaps not expecting John to speak, but then hummed an affirmative. “Quieter?” John pushed.

“Yes,” said Sherlock softly, and John was glad to hear no chatter in his speech, though he was still slurring in exhaustion. “Th’nk you.” This was said even more quietly, and John could not hold back the smile that broke over his face. He pulled his arms a bit tighter, and Sherlock sighed, turning his face further into John’s chest. The clipped wires scraped at John’s neck and he literally could not have cared less.

“You’re welcome,” John said, feeling giddy. Definitely concussed, he thought. Sherlock was feeling warmer in his arms, though they needed those blankets soon. He could hear voices echoing through the door and down the hall. Sherlock’s breathing was deepening as he calmed down and the events of the day took their toll.

“Oh!” he suddenly said from nowhere, and John knew a deduction when he heard one.

“Yes?”

Sherlock breathed in deeply again. “Gold! G’ld and… and grainy. Not the desert. W’d. Golden wood – ‘n English oak.” He breathed in deeply again and John realized with some bemusement that Sherlock was smelling him. He was also making no sense at all. The voices from outside were drawing closer.

“Sherlock, what are you talking about?” Sherlock sighed, either in exasperation or tiredness, or both, just as the door was thrown open and finally, finally, they were joined by paramedics. The two new people crouched down immediately on either side of them, and Sherlock tensed in John’s arms. “Easy there,” soothed John, and miraculously it worked. John supposed it might be less that Sherlock was OK with the emergency staff, and more that he seemed on the verge of passing out again. John saw Lestrade and Donovan warily peering around the door.

“Hello sir, what’s your name?” asked the paramedic with calm efficiency. Sherlock shifted in agitation, not answering. The man looked at John then.

“Give me a moment,” John asked, and thankfully the man nodded. Both paramedics stepped away.

“Sherlock, the ambulance is here. We need to get you to hospital.” He said it quietly into the prickly scalp by his chin as if he was sharing a secret. His injured jaw was really starting to throb.

“’M already inna hospit’l,” whined Sherlock. John chuckled, feeling Sherlock wobble as the sound shook them both.

“I know. But we need to get the electrodes off you and check you out for other injuries,” he said. He had very firmly been pushing thoughts of brain damage out of his head, but now they began creeping back. There had been a moment when Sherlock was under torture that he had seemed to talk to someone who wasn’t there, plus he couldn’t be sure if the way he was acting currently was out of character. They were in a situation neither had been in before, and he hoped very much that Sherlock’s reactions were his own and not part of some invisible injury. The paramedics were busy bringing in a scoop in order to get them moving.

“Want t’ go h’me,” said Sherlock, and then broke into a yawn so strong it sent shivers back over his limbs. John could not stop smiling with deep affection as Sherlock pulled his left hand up from under the jacket, balled it in a weak fist, and rubbed at his left eye. It was such an innocent picture, though marred by the sight of so many injuries. He was clearly fading now.

“I know, and we will. But hospital first. Besides, I need to be looked at as well,” he said, coaxing. Sherlock immediately became agitated – bad plan.

“Hurt?” he asked, worry evident in both body and voice.

“No, no, nothing serious. But we both need to go and get checked out, now. Will you come with me?” This was a bit of a risk, as Sherlock might flat out refuse, but John hoped it wouldn’t come to that. There was a pause and John shared a look with the paramedics as they all waited to see what their patient would do next. After a few moments, Sherlock sagged back again in his arms.

“F’ne,” he said, clearly unhappy but apparently resigned to his fate. John rested his cheek for a moment on that stubborn, prickly head, and thanked anyone who was listening that Sherlock had decided to be cooperative for once. Then he looked up and nodded at the paramedics who came forward with the scoop. Between the three of them, they managed to get Sherlock situated and secured. Sherlock kept his eyes screwed shut again, wincing and obviously trying very hard to be compliant against his will. He twitched whenever the paramedics touched him, and John knew if he had half a chance, he would bolt. John wondered just how noisy it was getting inside that unique head at this moment.

As they made ready to go, John reached out to rest his hand on Sherlock’s wrinkled brow, and it smoothed immediately. He looked down at Sherlock’s tired face and again felt that magnetic pull as the tired, wide eyes searched out his own. “You’re doing really well,” he said, meaning it. Sherlock smiled briefly, eyes slipping closed then slowly open again, fighting to stay awake. “You rest now,” John said, chest tight with emotion again now they were on their way to safety. Sherlock’s eyes closed and stayed closed, but he wasn’t quite asleep.

‘John?” He asked as the paramedics lifted the scoop and they all moved to the door.

“Yes, Sherlock?” He kept pace with the paramedics, already starting to think about treatment once they arrived. Sherlock smiled one more time, then said,

“You smell nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some angsty schmoopy goodness for you - delicious!
> 
> Comment and kudos give me LIFE x


	11. Chapter 11

Their odd procession moved quietly back through the dark corridors of Bart’s, and John distantly wondered what it was going to be like, coming here, from now on. He and Sherlock visited the place often to see Molly, Sherlock did lab work here. It was one of ‘their’ places. Was it still? He was starting to wobble with fatigue – his shoulder was aching badly from repeated strains and punches, and from a careful exploration of his jaw there was a bump forming under his chin and the side of his face was swollen. He didn’t think he had actually cracked the jaw when he hit the console, but it was beginning to feel like it now the adrenalin was wearing off. Lestrade was walking next to him, a strong solid presence, and John was so, so glad of it.

They reached the double exit doors and were greeted by more officers on their way in to secure the scene and collect Eric’s body. Donovan took over the scene and started issuing directions, walking away from them. A cold breeze blew over John as he stepped outside and tried to adjust to the sudden movements and noises of emergency crews and flashing lights. He sped up to stay close to their paramedics and to Sherlock, who was stirring into wakefulness again now that they were outside.

“Will John be able to go with him?” Lestrade asked the paramedics as they made ready to load Sherlock into the ambulance. John did stumble slightly, hearing that. It should have occurred to him before. He let Lestrade and the emergency workers discuss the issue and instead crouched over Sherlock’s face. Sherlock looked even worse now that they were outside – streetlights illuminating his battered face, Eric’s blood still all over him. John wished he had something to clean it off with. Sherlock had been laying still and drowsy, but listening to the conversation going on around him now John could see the gears start to turn and the conclusions he was reaching.

“Hey,” he said, making eye contact again. “It’ll be fine, if I can’t come in the ambulance then I’ll meet you there.” Sherlock narrowed his eyes and made as if to start sitting up, but he was secured with straps into the scoop. His eyes widened as he realized his movements were restricted and he seemed to wake up further, obviously unsettled. “Sherlock, listen to me, really, it’s OK,” John tried to sound reassuring, but if he were honest with himself he was unsettled as well. He didn’t want to be separated from Sherlock, but he also didn’t want to delay him getting to a 24-hour emergency room to start treatment.

“S’not OK,” Sherlock said bluntly, and now he bent his elbows up, hands weakly searching for the mechanism to release the restraints. The scoop straps were designed for patient safety, not to keep them against their will, though they had been fastened securely.

“Sherlock, stop, they just want to take you to the hospital,” John said, laying a hand across Sherlock’s frantically searching ones, hoping it would calm him down again. Unfortunately their luck seemed to have run out, as Sherlock glared at him and yanked his hands as far as he was able and kept feeling back and forth along the strap. John felt that glare like a slap in the face. The paramedics had the doors open. John looked over at Greg who shook his head, but gestured towards where his own car was parked.

“You know where we are going?” he asked. Greg nodded. Beneath him, Sherlock started straining and moving around in earnest as the emergency workers approached to move him into the ambulance.

“No!” he said suddenly, and he managed to wriggle one arm up the side of his body and over the straps, scraping his wrist in the process and set it to oozing again.

“Sherlock stop! You are going to hurt yourself!” John said, laying a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and feeling nauseous. The feeling intensified as Sherlock sent him another venomous look and pulled away again, then lifted his head to try and get a better view of the straps holding him down.

“Sir, you are going to need to keep still,” chided one of the paramedics, grabbing Sherlock’s free forearm and gently but firmly putting it back down. “We will be at the A&E in 15 minutes.”

“I’m not goin’,” Sherlock said, face set in determination and finding strength from somewhere to struggle a little harder. However, it was plain for them all to see that beneath the façade Sherlock could usually employ so easily to fool criminals, the police, or anyone else he felt like fooling, he was deeply distressed. He was fully awake but shivering with fatigue, his words were still slurring together, but his breathing had sped up along with more erratic movements. John’s nausea grew.

“Sherlock, please,” he tried again, not even knowing how to finish the sentence. His throat was closing up with an emotional tangle and he just wanted this awful night to be over. Lestrade laid a warm hand on his shoulder and Sherlock caught the movement: peered from it to John’s face and back again. He deflated slightly, and the two emergency workers, obviously experienced, used the opportunity to nudge him back into position then secure and tighten everything again.

Sherlock stared at John while they worked. “Y’ said, ‘with you’,” he said accusingly, but he laid his head back down, apparently too tired to keep resisting. Guilt warred with exasperation and every other emotion in John’s throat and he was in real danger of crying right there in front of the paramedics. He swallowed, trying to clear it.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be there soon, I promise,” he said as Sherlock was lifted up and away from him.

“I’ll drive him, Sherlock, we’ll meet you there,” added Lestrade. The hand on John’s shoulder started pulling him away and towards the car. There was no reply, and the paramedics nodded at him as the doors were closed and he was led away.

***********************

John spent the car ride with his hands on the dashboard, forehead resting on top of them. Greg had tried to make conversation, but John couldn’t bring himself to discuss how he had fought and killed Eric, or what might be wrong with Sherlock. What if that scene hadn’t only been Sherlock’s deep dislike of hospitals and of being treated for anything? What if it really was brain damage? He had been shocked dozens of times, enough to fuse the electrode pads to his skin. What injuries lay beneath those burns, injuries that John couldn’t see?

As soon as Greg was parked they both dashed into the emergency room, Greg flashing his badge to get faster attention at the reception.

“Sherlock Holmes,” John said. “Please, where is he?” The receptionist looked a bit startled and John was about to repeat himself, when Lestrade tapped him on the shoulder and pointed down the hall to where one of the paramedics who had moved Sherlock was standing. They jogged over, and she looked up. She did not smile.

“Where is he?” John asked immediately.

“He’s just being booked in. If you could both go to the waiting room…”

“I’m his doctor and I want to see him, now,” John said, standing a little taller and trying to wipe the fatigue from his face. She did not appear convinced. Lestrade sighed and opened his wallet to display his badge, again.

“What’s the problem?” he asked once she had taken a closer look.

“There’s no problem, but your friend isn’t being very cooperative. It’s better for all of you if you wait until he’s been booked in and settled in to a bed.” She was scribbling onto a note pad as she spoke, obviously in need of being somewhere else.

“He will be more cooperative if you let me see him,” said John, anger bleeding into his tone despite himself. He knew it wasn’t this woman’s fault and she was just doing her job, but he couldn’t help his rising annoyance. She looked up and them again and sighed.

“Alright fine. See if you can get him to let the nurse get his blood pressure.” She walked away and they followed her to a swinging door which she pushed and gestured at, hovering.

“I’ll be out here,” said Greg, and John nodded his thanks then pushed through the door.

“I c’n do it m’self!”

Sherlock was sitting on a bed and backed as far away from the attending nurse as possible, who to his credit was matching Sherlock’s obvious upset with equal calm. They both looked up as they heard John approaching, and the nurse made to stand between them. John headed off his objections.

“I’m Dr. Watson, and I’m this man’s personal private physician. If you tell me what you need, I’ll make sure it gets done.” The nurse looked over his shoulder where the paramedic was nodding impatiently.

“Alright. He’s a bit worked up. I need blood pressure, height and weight,” he said, stepping aside. John’s hoped were quashed slightly when Sherlock did not look remotely pleased to see him. He was shivering again, breathing quickly, and around and in between the injuries his skin was as white as the sheets he was sitting on. The lights were very bright in here and each purple bruise and angry red burn stood out clearly. With his head shaved and the remains of the electrodes sticking up in all directions, he would have evoked pity from his worst enemy.

John stepped forward and Sherlock pulled back, eyes guarded and wary. The trembling was still there, but contained as in a coiled spring. John hesitated.

“Sherlock? It’s me, John,” he said softly. Sherlock’s face twisted in consternation.

“Of course, ‘ts you, ‘m not ‘n idiot!” he said. Now he was looking at John as if it were he that might have brain damage. He folded his arms in front of himself, wincing and rearranging them to avoid the rope burns, every limb and look screaming NO!

This wasn’t going to work.

John took a deep breath, and thought about their normal interactions. How did he normally get Sherlock to do anything? Especially something he didn’t want to do? Unless…

“OK that’s enough!” he said, voice raised. “The people here are trying to HELP you. YOU are going to sit up properly, and then YOU are going to let me take your blood pressure and stop upsetting the hospital staff. Then you are going to STAND on the scale and let me take your height and weight and then are going to be COOPERATIVE, you get me? We didn’t come here to WASTE everyone’s time, we came here to get you WELL so that we can go HOME, alright?”

Time seemed to stop at his outburst. He kept his face clear of how unsure he felt about this, tried to look as annoyed at Sherlock as he had with his past flat-mate antics. If he was right, Sherlock didn’t want to be coddled, or reminded that he was hurt, or seen as vulnerable or in need of protection – no matter that he looked like he was about to pass out. He hoped he was right. Sherlock had drawn back again in surprise, face wiped blank but his eyes wide. There were a few beats of silence. Then,

“But I don’ want to have my blood press’r taken,” he said. “An’ I already know my height an’ weight.” The tone was whiny while still slurred, but the tension in the crossed arms lessened. This was something familiar in an unfamiliar situation, and John felt a hint of relief as well.

“I know,” said John, pressing his advantage and moving forward, reaching for the blood pressure cuff. Sherlock didn’t retreat any further. “But you have to stop being ridiculous. Honestly, you can cope with being tortured in an MRI machine but you’re kicking up a stink about your blood pressure?” He heard the nurse gasp somewhere behind him at his lack of tact, but ignored it, focusing on Sherlock, who huffed and rolled his eyes, dropping his arms completely.

“Didn’t want t’ do that, either,” Sherlock groused, then miracle of miracles he held out his arm as if he were doing John a favor. John cheered internally as he secured the blood pressure cuff. Sherlock slumped a little, the fight leeching out of him once again. He raised his free hand and rubbed it across his eyes, then cupped it to his own ear, leaning into it.

“Something bothering you?” asked John, turning on the machine and watching the monitor. The nurse came to hover at his shoulder, earning a half-hearted glare from their patient.

“Everythin’,” said Sherlock. John raised his eyebrows and Sherlock huffed again. “Headache, an’ the lights are noisy. Bad smells,” he added, wrinkling his nose.

“No-one likes hospitals,” said John a bit bluntly, and Sherlock sighed. He was still not happy, his body language still screamed that he would rather be anywhere but here, but he wasn’t about to attack anyone anymore. John would take what he could get. The monitor beeped, and Sherlock became mildly curious as he read out the result to the nurse. It was in Sherlock’s normal range, so John kept the scene moving.

“Height and weight next, and I already know I’m not going to like what I find, so no complaining!” he said, offering an arm for Sherlock to hold. Thankfully, he did, putting both feet on the floor and leaning over. He stood and John felt the sway and the tension, but didn’t remark on it. “And if you fall over because you’re too proud to ask for help, we are going to have words,” he said. Sherlock scowled in annoyance but leaned a little heavier. Between them, they got all the measurements the nurse wanted, and then after some more negotiation John was pushing Sherlock along in a wheelchair, Lestrade falling into line.

“Got him in hand, then?” asked Greg, relieved and happy.

“Well, you know him, such a drama queen,” said John, smiling.

“I c’n hear you!” said Sherlock, full of indignation.

“Good!” said Greg, and John could hear how much he meant it.

******************************

The nurse had led them to an available bed and once Sherlock was settled again, he fell asleep. He had used the last of his energy to tell Greg off for his choice of cologne (again) and imperiously tell John he had to get his jaw checked out (“Honestly, J’hn, y’know doct’rs are the wors’ patients,”) and then just sort of switched off as his head met the pillow. Greg had grinned at John, helped him rearrange the blankets, and now they were sitting in plastic chairs in the hallway, keeping the curtain-ed off bed in sight. There was a nurse there tending to the wrists and ankles who had gently ushered them out, and John had acquiesced once it was obvious that Sherlock wasn’t going to wake up again any time soon. Apparently they wanted a burn specialist to look at Sherlock’s head, and that would be a bit of a longer wait. Then there would be a full evaluation, which John was sure meant a fight with Sherlock every step of the way.

“God, what a horrible night,” said Greg, settling further into his chair. John remembered that he had already been looking worse-for-wear before the events of the evening. They all needed a holiday. Greg yawned to prove his point, then turned and looked him over. “He’s right you know, you should get checked out too,” he said, though he didn’t jump up to try and get the process started.

“I will,” said John, “after we know how he’s doing.” A bed was pushed past them then, multiple people surrounding it and talking over patient injuries. The whole place was a bustle of activity, and there was nowhere to wait that was any closer to Sherlock. John hoped that his friend stayed asleep until more staff were available to consult.

“Seems OK though, doesn’t he?” asked Greg after the crowd had passed. “I mean, for a while there I thought…”

“Yeah. Me too.” John sighed and rubbed at his face. “I’m worried about the burns. And… well, there might be brain damage, Greg.” Saying it out loud seemed a betrayal, somehow - as if saying it made it more likely. Greg appeared to think about that for a while.

“John, even if there is, he’ll be alright. He’s got more brains than both of us put together, even on a bad day. He’s going to get better. Besides, he’s got you.” John snorted at that, bringing up his other hand and pressing his fingers into his eyes. He felt Greg’s hand come up around his shoulder in a half-hug. “He does. Me, too, if he lets me help. Stubborn bastard.” John laughed through his hands, though it was a little watery - he couldn’t help it.

“Thanks,” he said, wiping his face again. His eyes were stinging, and Greg gave his shoulders a tight squeeze before dropping his arm.

“What about that scan, then?” asked Greg, changing the subject. “I’m no expert of course, but I’ve never seen anything like that. Looked like there was a light show going on in there!” He tapped his head.

“I know. I saw them too. And… I don’t know, I haven’t seen that either,” John admitted. “It looked like whatever was going on wasn’t even contained in his head. Like he was emitting… something…”

“My brother has never been one to think like other people.” John jumped slightly and turned away from Greg, to find Mycroft Holmes settling himself into another plastic chair. He was dressed in a grey three piece suit, his ever-present umbrella was propped in front of him and he rested his hands on it imperiously, looking like he sat there every day of his life. John gaped at him.

“What… how…”

“My dear Dr. Watson,” sighed Mycroft with a put-upon head-shake. “Do you think I would not be informed the moment my brother is in need of emergency medical services?” He shook his head again as if John had mightily disappointed him then stared off towards Sherlock’s bed and the feet of the nurse they could see underneath. “How is he?” The tone was bland, the face blank. John felt a surge of anger.

“How… How IS HE? He’s… he’s HURT, Mycroft! He was tortured with electric shocks, his skin is all torn from being tied down, he was experimented on, he has burns on his head, that bastard cut off his hair…”

“He what?” Mycroft had only looked vaguely interested throughout John’s rant but looked aghast at the last fact.

“You heard me,” said John coldly. “And where were you? You always know what’s going on, don’t tell me you didn’t know anything about Eric Lang and his mad experiments!” Greg had remained quiet so far, but he stiffened on John’s other side.

“You didn’t, did you?” He asked, something dangerous in the tone.

“Of course I didn’t!” snapped Mycroft, finally more emotion animating the voice. “I knew nothing about it until your people arrived at the scene. I have sent my own in to evaluate..."

“On whose authority?” Greg interrupted. “We need that evidence…”

“For what?” asked Mycroft, frost creeping back in. John’s head was flipping between the two as if watching a verbal tennis match. “The perpetrator is dead, is he not Dr. Watson?” John nodded weakly. Definitely dead. “And the data collected in his experiments ought not to be allowed into the realm of the general public, so it is being confiscated.”

“What about the other victims, Mycroft? Their families deserve justice!” Greg shouted. John saw the people at reception starting to pay more attention to them.

“And justice has been done,” said Mycroft, gesturing at John. “I trust you are not about to charge our good doctor here with murder?”

“What? No!” Greg spluttered slightly, and John felt a twinge of sympathy. He knew what it was like to have a sparring match with a Holmes.

“Alright stop, will you?” he said. “Or save it for later. I don’t want to get kicked out of here, thanks. Mycroft, did you go to Bart’s?”

“Not personally, no,” said Mycroft, still bristling slightly.

“So you didn’t see what was done. What Eric did. I mean… Christ, it was like something out of a horror movie. And Sherlock’s hair is still all over the floor in there.” Mycroft made to reply but then John had a horrible thought and lifted up his shoe to peer at the underside. Sure enough, they all saw the few black hairs that were still caught in the rubber treads. Mycroft closed his mouth with a nearly audible click.

“He’s going to be alright, John,” Greg said again, and John realized he was shaking again. He swallowed hard and put his foot down slowly, fighting off an irrational urge to collect the few dirty hairs stuck there and put them away where they would be safe in his pocket. After a pause, Mycroft offered,

“My people will clean the scene with deference to the events that took place,” he said. John knew that was about all he was going to get, though Mycroft’s tone was slightly more conciliatory that usual.

“You said he doesn’t think like other people?” asked Greg. “Did you see the scan from Bart’s?”

“Actually yes, I did.” Mycroft leaned his umbrella on the wall and pulled out his phone. He called an image up to the screen, extending his arm so that they could all see it. John stared again at the twinkling lights that shimmered over and around the scan. He recalled his own scan – chunks of activity centered in different parts of the brain depending on what he had been directed to do by Cheswell.

If his own scan had been an image of a collection of fireflies flickering on the trees at night, Sherlock’s was a painting of when the swarm took flight.

“Any idea what it means?” Greg asked hopefully.

“In truth? No. Though I have also received initial reports from the tampered laboratory.” He put his phone away. “It seems that the program was set up to push input into the subject’s mind at an increasing rate, to speed up their own processes, until they reached their limit. Then they would go into shock, suffer a stroke, and die.” The clinical tone was back, the one that John hated so much when Sherlock attempted it. Mycroft however was on another level. “However,” he continued, “the machines were also collecting data from each subject, as we see on the scan. Our working hypothesis at the moment is that in Sherlock’s case, the two data streams, both outgoing and incoming, became synonymous and continued to be so until the program was shut down.”

John tried to puzzle that out, but was starting to feel like a child thrown into a university lecture. “English, Mycroft?” he sighed. Unexpectedly, Mycroft did not mock him, but said,

“Very well. If this had been a contest between man and machine, it appears they were evenly matched. We can assume the prior test subjects died as they were pushed beyond human endurance, yes? Well it appears that if this experiment had been allowed to continue, then Sherlock might well have pushed the program beyond machine endurance.”

Greg let out a low whistle.

“In fact,” Mycroft went on, “at the end of the… session… it appears that Sherlock was somehow giving out a stronger and more complex data stream than he was receiving. I wonder what the difference was…”

“He wasn’t looking at the screen at the end,” said Greg. “He was looking at John.”

The silence then was very weighty. John had an odd feeling of being underwater as the other two looked at him.

“Indeed?” Mycroft remarked, and there was something calculating in the face, something worrisome. “Well in any case, his mind was going faster than the program was able to process. Sherlock has always been careful to keep his mind finely tuned.”

“He’s not a machine,” John whispered after trying to grasp the enormity of what Mycroft was telling them. Mycroft looked at him strangely then, as if surprised, and the calculating edge slipped away.

“Of course he isn’t,” he agreed.

“And if we hadn’t switched it off?” Greg asked.

“Then whatever the outcome, he would have died. So I owe you my thanks.” John privately thought this was not the same as actually saying, ‘thank you’, but didn’t have the energy to press it.

“Actually it was my officer Sally Donovan who stopped the program,” said Greg.

“Then you will extend my thanks to her as well,” said Mycroft, rising from his seat. John looked up at him in confusion, then followed his gaze to Sherlock’s bed where new staff members were gathering. Worry gnawed anew in his gut.

“Shall we go over?” asked Greg.

“Actually I do have to tell them something,” said John. The gnawing in his stomach increased and he wondered about the last time he had eaten. The constant adrenalin rushes, peaks and slumps were no doubt making a mess of his insides. “They should check… I don’t even want to say it, to tell the truth.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Check what?” asked Mycroft from above him.

“They… they should check him for signs of assault. Sexual assault I mean.” He forced the words out then put his hands back over his face, rubbing up and down. There were hands on his wrists. Greg had crouched in front of him and was pulling his hands away, both a comfort and a question.

“Tell me.” The tone brooked no argument. John sagged.

“The blood. The blood on his front – it’s not his, it’s Eric’s. He must have… he must have kissed Sherlock, and Sherlock bit him.” He watched anger pass over Greg’s face like a wave, then professionalism returned. John wondered how he was doing it. He daren’t look up to see how Mycroft was reacting.

“And? There’s something else…” Greg led. John felt his eyes well up, finally. It seemed like he had been forcing tears back for hours, but it seemed they would not be contained anymore.

“Things Eric said. He… said, ‘I’m going to get inside him,’ and…” he blinked and the tears finally fell.

“And?” Greg let go of one wrist and dug in his pocket, producing a tissue. John took it gratefully.

“And, he said, ‘He’s mine,’” John whispered. He balled the tissue in his hand then swiped at his face. Greg’s lip were pressed together, his face carved out of stone. He squeezed John’s wrist once more, then stood up. John fiddled with the tissue and sniffed, appalled at what he had said, even though the words weren’t his. It seemed there was some sort of silent conversation going on above his head, then,

“John, let’s go and get you checked out. I’m worried about your jaw.” Greg, again. Solid and strong.

“But… Sherlock…” He sniffed again. His shoulders were starting to hitch, his breathing uneven, but he couldn’t stop it now.

“Mycroft will be with him. Come on.” John looked up and knew he must look absolutely wretched. Mycroft nodded, and though John was skeptical that Sherlock would be pleased to see his brother, he knew without any doubt that Mycroft would not allow him to come to further harm. “Let’s get some air first, alright?” Greg tugged on his shoulder and got him to his feet. “Mycroft will find out what’s going on, we’ll get some air and a sandwich. Well, you’ll get some air, I’ll have a smoke. Then we’ll get you sorted out and back to Sherlock, right?” John nodded, not trusting himself to speak, feeling a slight wobble in his lips. The tissue was already a shredded wet mess clutched in one hand. He looked over towards the bed, where muted conversation was taking place, but knew he was no good to Sherlock in this state.

“You’ll stay with him?” he asked Mycroft, just in case. Mycroft did not appear offended in the least.

“You have my word.”

John nodded, took a last look at the curtains, then let Greg lead him away. He stared straight down at his feet, putting one numbly in front of the other, following Greg until the cool air and faint light of dawn told him they were outside. Greg led him quietly around a corner to where there was an empty bench and a utilitarian ashtray, where John finally gave up and cried into his shoulder like a broken-hearted child.

*************************

Greg had kept the conversation light as he forced John to eat a vending machine sandwich and get looked over back in the A&E. He didn’t seem to mind that after his breakdown outside, John could only manage one-word answers. John was sure once he could finally rest properly he was going to sleep for a week. After extolling on the virtues and scandals of various football teams (Greg) and being handed a prescription for anti-inflammatories and painkillers (John), it was almost two hours since they had left Mycroft and they were told Sherlock had been taken in for surgery to remove the electrodes that had been stuck to his head. Greg had propped John against a wall at this news while he found out where they could go to wait. Though it wasn’t a surprise and he knew it was necessary, John still felt shocked when he heard the word, ‘surgery’. He fervently wished he was in better shape, or at least on the medical side of things rather than the family and friends side. He would take the trauma room any day over all of this waiting around.

“Right, we need to go to the waiting room on the second floor”, Greg said. Those meds will work better if you actually take them, you realize?” John nodded, contrite, and promptly opened the boxes and swallowed the requisite pills. An x-ray had confirmed his jaw wasn’t broken, no hairline fracture, though he wasn’t going to be resting it on anything any time soon. He had allowed them to rotate and check his shoulder range of movement as well as his other bumps and bruises as much as he could tolerate – which turned out to be not much – and escaped the situation as fast as possible, leading Greg to pronounce him ‘almost as bad as Sherlock.’

They reached the second floor waiting room. There was a man who was very obviously a private security guard standing by the door, so it was no surprise to enter and find Mycroft waiting for them. Incongruously, he appeared to be reading a copy of Heat magazine from the selection on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he greeted them and put down the magazine, rubbing his fingers together with mild distaste. “I am told they are finishing up with the surgery and Sherlock will be recovering in room twenty five C in due course. We will be informed.”

“Did he wake up at all?” asked John.

“No, he was still asleep when they sedated him for surgery – I thought it best he not wake up until we had more privacy and the necessary procedures were over.”

“A private room?” asked Greg, sitting.

“Naturally,” said Mycroft.

“What did they decide to do?” asked John, pacing a little.

“Of the sixteen electrodes, the burn specialist believed that six might be able to be removed with minimal damage, but at least eight needed to be excised. They have also involved a plastic surgeon but unfortunately I am told that in these cases scarring is unavoidable.” Mycroft had folded one leg over another as he talked, appearing completely unaffected. John couldn’t get a read on him at all, though he knew he cared deeply for his brother. He was glad, very glad, that Sherlock could not pull off this act half as well. They were interrupted then as a cheerful looking man in hospital garb joined them.

“Holmes party?” he asked. Mycroft nodded.

“Perfect. I’m Dr. Stevens, I was one of Sherlock’s surgeons. You’ll be happy to know it went very well. All the electrodes are off. There were four where we had to remove quite a bit of the surrounding tissue, so what we have done is taken some of the skin from Sherlock’s arm,” he paused and lifted his own arm, gesturing at the soft skin of the upper inner part, “and used it to ‘fill in the gaps’, as it were. We use this piece of skin in situations like this because we carry a bit extra there, and it’s in good condition for transplants. It should heal up just fine.”

John sank into one of the chairs.

“Can we see him?” asked Mycroft, all business.

“Yes, in a few minutes, they are just getting him set up in his room. Don’t worry, you’ll see he has a lot of bandages on but it’s just to help protect against infection. We are going to keep him in for a few days to see how the incisions are doing, and in a week he’ll need to come back in to get the stitched removed.” John let the information pass over his head. He had reeled off information like this to families and loved ones countless times, and how he wished again he wasn’t now on this side of it.

Incisions. Transplant. Stitches. Sherlock.

Greg moved to sit next to him. The doctor was still speaking. “Once he has had some time to recover from the surgery, we will need to do an MRI and a CT to check that there aren’t any injuries to the brain. We are hopeful that there won’t be – he might have been protected by his skull as that is what it’s there for, but best to be sure. We will also have a specialist come in to evaluate him: fine motor skills, memory recall, that sort of thing. But all of that will be in a day or two, for now the best thing for him is to rest.” Dr. Stevens smiled kindly and looked around at them, obviously understanding their upset though none were giving it voice. “If you have any questions at all, you can contact me directly,” he said, pulling out a business card and handing it to Mycroft. “The nurse will be in soon to let you know you can see him.” He nodded at them all once more then left the room.

“He seemed… optimistic?” remarked Mycroft, pocketing the card. John nodded. He agreed, in the circumstances things could be a lot worse, but his heart ached at the thought of Sherlock being left with scars, not to mention all the other unseen problems.

“Will…” Greg started, then coughed, looking uncomfortable. “Will his hair grow back, do you think?” John leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling.

“Not all of it, no,” he said, unable to think about it for too long. He felt Greg shift in agitation next to him.

“Bastard,” Greg muttered, and John heartily agreed.

“I must tell you both that I mentioned Dr. Watson’s other concerns to the consultants,” said Mycroft from across the room, “and they found no physical evidence of that kind of assault.” John took a deep breath, hearing everything that wasn’t said. No physical evidence – so no telltale bruises, scratches, tears – but not every attack left a mark. Hopefully Eric hadn’t had time to do anything more than kiss Sherlock, though that was bad enough. His thoughts skittered away once again, unable to settle on something so awful.

A knock at the door, then a nurse popped her head into the room.

“You’re here for Sherlock Holmes? Follow me, please.”

She led them down the hall to the private room that Mycroft had arranged. John let him and Greg go inside first, trying to steel himself against what he was going to see. He went in, seeing first Greg standing at the foot of the bed, then Mycroft on the other side looking down. The nurse retreated after informing them it would be another ten to fifteen minutes before Sherlock woke up fully.

Finally, he let his eyes roam up, from the blanket-covered feet, over the knees, to the pale still hands resting atop the covers. There was an IV in one, a heart-rate monitor on one finger. Shiny wrappings covered the thin purple wrists – they would allow the wounds to heal and breathe at the same time. He forced his eyes to keep moving up to the chest – the hospital gowns here were a slightly different color than to Bart’s, which was welcome – to the bandage around the arm covering the new surgical site. Then the bruised neck, shining with more modern wound covers, allowing them to see the damage done there as well.

Finally he made himself look at Sherlock’s face, and he drew closer to the bed almost in spite of himself. Sherlock’s eyes looked sunken, his lower lip bruised and swollen. On one side of his face were more small deep bruises, the other cheek had one large one. John immediately pictured Eric’s big strong hands, and felt the familiar anger rise. Then from his forehead extending all the way over to the nape of his neck, Sherlock’s head was wrapped in bright white bandages. The doctor had warned them, and John had seen so much worse, but it was still awful to see his vibrant, active friend reduced to such a state.

Greg put his hand on one of Sherlock’s shoulders and leaned forward. “Alright Sherlock. You have a good rest. You’re in good hands here. Try not to make everyone crazy when you wake up, you hear me?” He spoke clearly, fondly, as if Sherlock was awake. He turned then to the others. “Sorry I’m going to have to go. The Yard has been after me half the night. I’ll come back tonight, you’ll keep me updated?”

John nodded, awash with gratitude that had such amazing people in his life. “Thank you. For being here,” he said, and it wasn’t enough. Greg smiled anyway, then stepped forward and gave him an unapologetic firm hug. “You get some sleep too John, alright?” he said before letting him go, and John nodded. “OK then, see you later. Mycroft,” he said by way of goodbye, then left.

“I believe I will also leave you to it,” said Mycroft.

“You don’t want to wait?” asked John in disbelief.

“My brother and I have a somewhat… unusual relationship,” said Mycroft, looking at Sherlock’s sleeping face then back to John. “I believe he would not appreciate me seeing him like this. The hospital will keep me well informed of his progress.” John frowned at him, but was not about to get into an argument. “I will have some clothes for you both delivered, that is if you are staying?” Mycroft gestured to the corner of the room, where there was a single pull-out chair-bed for visitors.

“Of course I’m staying!” snapped John. Mycroft did not react to the unspoken rebuke. Instead, he looked… approving? He reached into his suit pocket and produced his phone, calling up Sherlock’s unusual brain scan once again. He held it up so John could see it.

“What do you see, Dr. Watson?” he asked. “Something… strange?”

John scowled. “Something precious.”

“Hmm,” said Mycroft, turning the screen to look at it again. “Something precious… He would have died in there, if not for you. Do you understand that, really?” John was thrown by the topic change.

“I…well…”

“He was a very affectionate child, you know,” said Mycroft, switching verbal directions and leaving John behind again. He put his phone away and rested his hand on the rail at the foot of Sherlock’s bed. “Always clambering all over people… Well, people and trees anyway.” John wasn’t following at all, though he remembered something Sherlock had said, back in the lab.

“English Oak…” he said out loud. Mycroft looked back over at him, saying nothing. John rallied. “Why are you telling me this?” Mycroft looked at Sherlock one more time, patted the bed rail then made for the door.

“You two had a disagreement recently, yes?” he said, reaching for the handle. “One due in part to the fact you were ready to research what goes on in Sherlock’s head?”

“What? How… what does that have to do with…”

“John,” said Mycroft, and John stopped talking in sheer surprise. He pulled the door open to leave, then stopped. “You tried researching what goes on inside his head,” Mycroft stated. “So did Eric Lang. So did multiple doctors and specialists during his childhood. Has it not occurred to you that instead of inside his head, perhaps it might be time to start researching what goes on inside his heart?”

He gave John one last knowing look, then was through the door, and gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter to go, where we will get more of Sherlock's POV.
> 
> Lestrade is bae. 
> 
> As always I'd love to chat to you in the comments and am unashamedly fishing for kudos! Hugs


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this is not the last chapter after all....

Sherlock reached higher, blindly feeling his way around the trunk for a better handhold, face pressed against the rough bark. He was determined to make it to the top this time.

‘Where are you going, Sherlock?’ asked Mycroft from his branch below.

‘Up,’ said Sherlock, finding a knot in the trunk with his questing hand and looking down for where he could raise his foot. Mycroft was sitting a few branches below, looking up at his progress. Sherlock ignored him, squinting at the branches for a likely step, but he noticed his foot looked all wrong. He was wearing his Italian leather shoes. Plus his legs seemed longer than they ought to be, and he was wearing suit trousers… that wasn’t right, was it?

‘It’s not time for that yet,’ said Mycroft. He sounded very sure. Sherlock looked from his confusing foot to his brother.

‘It’s not? Well… then when?’ He wanted to see the top of the canopy. Smell the fresh air. See the sun.

‘Hopefully not for a long time,’ said Mycroft, and Sherlock sighed. He clambered back down so they were sitting level.

‘I thought it was time already,’ he said morosely, and Mycroft gave him a stern look.

‘Don’t be so eager to be off, up and away brother mine. Besides, you aren’t finished yet. You need to see what lays beneath.’ He pointed with his umbrella downwards, where the leaves turned darker and darker green until it was impossible to see the ground.

‘I know what’s down there,’ said Sherlock, shuddering. People, and pain, confusion and heartache. He folded his arms against a sudden chill. His arms seemed far too long as well. The wind beyond the tree picked up – it blew his hair around and stung his eyes.

‘You thought you knew,’ said Mycroft. ‘But you were wrong.’

‘Wrong?’ the wind kept blowing and the branch he was sitting on creaked as the tree swayed.

‘You didn’t have all the facts,’ Mycroft went on, as the tree swayed further. Sherlock clung on to the trunk to keep from falling.

‘What facts?’ Sherlock raised his voice against the wind. A few leaves blew into his face, got stuck in his hair. Mycroft looked completely unaffected.

‘You made assumptions. You assumed it was impossible,’ shouted Mycroft, and the tree gave a violent lurch as if in a strong gale. Sherlock shouted out as he was swept from his branch, arms extended wildly to catch himself. After a moment of confusion, he found himself hanging by both hands from a thin branch, Mycroft sitting above and looking down at him.

‘Myc! Help me!’ he cried, but Mycroft shook his head.

‘I can’t help you with this, Sherlock,’ he called over the wind, and for once he did sound a bit sad. ‘You have to let go.’

‘What? No!’ Sherlock shouted back, but the branches were swaying again and his grip was loosening. He looked down and could see nothing apart from dark leaves and spindly branches. If he fell, he would be lost, he was certain of it.

‘Let go, Sherlock,’ called Mycroft.

‘I’m afraid!’ Sherlock shouted, gripping the swinging branch more tightly. He heard Mycroft laugh, and it mixed in with the sound of the gale.

‘That’s never stopped you before,’ he said, voice trailing away. Sherlock looked for him again, but the branch was empty and he was gone. Sherlock reached up, stretching as far as he could. The next branch was sturdier but it was just on the edge of the reach of his fingertips. If he strained hard enough, he might be able to reach it. Reach it, and climb higher, away from the perils of the ground…

‘Sherlock…’ His names was whispered on the wind, through the leaves… by the leaves? He brought his hand back to the thin branch, looked around. There was no one there. ‘Sherlock…’ It was a friendly voice. Strong. Calm, even in the wind. He looked down again past his dangling feet. He couldn’t make out anything at all through the dense green growth.

‘Sherlock…’

He took a deep breath, and let go.

There was a rushing moment of leaves brushing past his face, the feeling of falling, but then it all slowed down. The lower branches of the tree were bending, forming around him, lowering him down towards the ground metre by metre, not letting him fall. He was passed from branch to branch, slowly slowly downwards. Finally the last thick bough bent and deposited him on the familiar rug of 221B.

He sat up, disorientated. He was sitting on the rug, but there were roots poking through it here and there. Everything was covered in a dusting of snow, and he could see his breath in front of him. He looked up, and saw his and John’s chairs held aloft by some of the lower branches, and much higher there was the living room skull, embedded into the mighty trunk. The tree, the tree that had taken over this room in the palace – that’s where he was, where he had been. It was the tree from his childhood, his safe place, transplanted here to grow its way through the sanctuary of his adult life.

He stood up on shaky legs, feeling incredibly cold. He looked down, and his shoes were gone – his feet were bare, toes kneading the snow-covered rug, and the skin around his ankles was torn and bruised. The hospital gown he was wearing only came down to his knees, and at the sight of it he swayed in horrified remembrance. He threw his hands out, grabbing and leaning against the tree trunk, gasping for breath. It was warm, and secure, and safe. He stood there for a moment, trying to regain some kind of equilibrium. Once he had his balance again, he raised a shaking hand and tentatively touched the top of his head, wincing at the pain caused by the touch. His head was shaved, the skin was damaged, and he had to swallow against a sudden deep sadness. He didn’t want to be down here in the cold and the dark. He spotted the living room mirror, held aloft to his right, and moved to stand under it. He looked… strange. Tall and thin, all angles and edges without his hair. Mechanical. Not human, he thought, sadness turning into a familiar ache of despair. He shivered, wrapping his arms around his torso for warmth.

‘Sherlock…’ That voice again, whispering down from the branches, borne on a golden breeze that held a promise of summer. He looked up, searching.

‘…Yes? He whispered back.

‘Sherlock…’

‘Yes?’ He called, louder. ‘I’m here! Where are you?’ He stumbled, feet numb in the snow, catching on unseen roots.

‘I’m waiting,’ said the voice fondly.

‘I don’t understand!’ shouted Sherlock, back at the trunk now, looking around frantically. ‘Waiting for what?!’

‘Waiting for you,’ the voice said with a hint of laughter, and Sherlock almost thought he recognized it. He looked back up into the branches. No, not into the branches. At the branches. See the wood for the trees…

There was another hint of chuckle from the voice, then,

‘Are you ready?’

********************************

The return to wakefulness was sudden and abrupt. There were no soft slow openings of his eyes, no blearily moving in and out of consciousness, just one second he was standing in the snow and the next second his eyes were open and he was gasping in air that was positively drenched in the teal green stench of hospitals. He blinked several times against the bright lights, an awful headache making itself known, and when he tried to raise a hand to hold his head felt the tug of an IV. A slew of impressions flicked over his memory – the lab, Eric, cutting his hair, the kiss, the pain, the absolute and certain knowledge that he was dying… John…

He calmed his breathing with great effort, eyes growing accustomed to the lights but not the pressure headache behind them. Even still, he raised himself up on shaking arms to take stock of the situation.

A non-descript hospital room. There were bed rails on either side of him, an IV in his left hand, a heart monitor attached to his right. He had various bandages and dressings on his wounds, one of which on his arm he didn’t even remember getting. His head was absolutely throbbing with pain, every heart beat a new red surge of it. He carefully raised his left hand to investigate, meeting only scratchy bandaging material. He blinked a few more times slowly against the pain and the dancing lights caused by it, then looked over the rail to his right.

John. He was asleep, and not comfortably. He was sitting on a beige converter bed, but had left it configured as a chair. Perhaps he had wanted to stay awake? Sherlock wondered. In any case, John was facing him, one arm propped on the top of the chair, but his head was resting on it at a very awkward angle and he was sound asleep. Sherlock frowned when he saw the dark reddish-purple bruising on his lower jaw, wondered if he should wake him… then a coil of scent drifted across the intervening space. It was golden yellow, and alive! Alive and growing, full of potential, with the earthy greenness of leaves and life.

Sherlock remembered then – remembered laying on the floor of the lab, convinced he was going to freeze to death after surviving everything else, then being held secure and safe in John’s warm arms. Listening to his heart beat, smelling that smell, all the other input had gone away, as if the two of them were alone in the middle of an empty summer field.

He lay down again, unable to support his weight on his arm for long, the injured one aching. He rolled over so he could see John better through the bars of the bed rail, brought his knees further in until he was curled into a ball on his side.

If he were completely honest with himself, he was disturbed. He hated hospitals, hated being poked and prodded at and evaluated by medical professionals, and he did everything he could to avoid it. He had been very wary of John, Dr. Watson, when they first met. He had seen how useful he could be, how intriguing he was, but he still kept up a wall between them lest John get too close. Of course that had all fallen apart very quickly – about as quickly as John had decided to shoot someone for him.

So, Sherlock hadn’t wanted to come to the hospital. Had made it clear, but then John had said, ‘Come with me,’ and he had capitulated. Just like that. He had done it again when he finally let the paramedics put him in the ambulance, and again when he let John take his blood pressure. John had worked out somehow what no one else had been able to – how to appeal to Sherlock Holmes. Then there had been that other moment in the lab, when he had reached out and touched his face…

Dangerous, Sherlock thought, looking closely at the sleeping man. He was in the same quandary as he had been before. John had so much sway over him, that he could affect Sherlock’s actions, his emotions, even his thoughts. He could reach out one hand and switch his brain off – something even Sherlock wasn’t able to do.

Not just dangerous – terrifying.

‘I’m afraid!’ he suddenly remembered saying. Shouting. Or had he? Had that been a dream? It was hard to tell at the moment. The teal green smell rising up from the blanket was scratching at him so he threw it off, but then the cold – when was the last time he felt warm? Oh yes, John… - the cold returned. The robe was physically itching his skin too and he scratched around the neckline irritably. Hopefully they would be able to go home today and he could finally get comfortable again.

John snuffled a little in his sleep. Sherlock wondered if he was dreaming, and what it might be about. He wondered how he had got the bruises on his jaw (punch likely, impact possible), the scrapes on his knuckles (throwing punches, holding a solid object), and what he had done to Eric Lang. Sherlock drew his legs up a little tighter at the thought of the man. He had met a lot of people in his life who wanted to cause harm, either in the heat of the moment or with cold, calculating precision, but Eric had been something different. He had believed that there was some secret to the world, some secret to ‘fitting in’, being normal, being human, and it was being kept from him. He believed it so strongly that he was willing to go looking inside people’s heads for it. The truly awful thing, the shameful ugly thing that Sherlock would admit to no-one, was that he sympathized. Eric had been… well, he could have been HIM. Both ‘different’, both non-neurotypical, both outcasts, intrigued by the mysteries of the world, both bullied, drug users, ‘wrong’… lonely…

Sherlock was in no doubt that Eric was dead though. He knew it like he knew the summer followed the spring. He knew it, looking over John, his best, loyal, lethal friend. His friend who would have made sure that this threat to Sherlock’s health and happiness was completely eradicated.

Dangerous, he thought again, but he couldn’t help the smile that trembled over his lips. Terrifying. The smile grew.

Probably not good, he considered, forcing the smile away with a sigh.

John stirred slightly again. Sherlock drew closer to the bed rail, gripped one of the bars, knees knocking against another. Nudged the pillow out of the way when it obscured one eye. What was going to happen between them now? He remembered how John had touched him after breaking down his bedroom door, how the aftermath of that touch had sent Sherlock into a spin of anxiety and second-guessing. He had thought, then, that anything he had to offer to John in return for this… kindness?... could not possibly be enough. But then John had done it again, and more. Had held onto him as he was freed from a torture chamber, held the tattered pieces of him together until help arrived. And Sherlock had not felt frightened, or confused, or coerced. He had let John do as he liked, as he always did, and it had been quiet, and calm, and lovely.

Was that over, now? Was that all that he was allowed? If it were, he should be grateful, but instead the thought cut at his stomach like pins and needles.

There was a sudden knocking at the door, and he jumped back from the bed rail as if it were electrified, lying flat on his back again. A doctor and nurse walked in, and he heard John mumble something incoherent as he woke up. The nurse tutted at the state of the blankets and started fussing, bringing them back up and over Sherlock’s legs and stomach, and Sherlock resisted with great effort an infantile urge to snap his teeth at her.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Holmes!” said the doctor. She was in her forties, natural ginger hair topped up with red box dye, some botox around the eyes. Happily married, yoga enthusiast, vegetarian, had been late to work that morning, copper-tangy nectarine burst of smell crawling crawling crawling…

Sherlock blinked to try and stop the relentless stream of information leeching off the woman, his headache intensifying to the point he had to clamp both hands to his head, bandages be damned.

“Oh dear, headache?” she asked, loudly. Sherlock ignored her and slammed his eyes closed.

“Could you stand back a bit?” John. Sherlock heard him stand and move to the window. “And let’s have some less light in here, yeah?” The sound of blinds being drawn, the click of lights being lowered. Sherlock felt almost pathetically grateful. He could tell by the air currents that the two women had moved away and John was standing with them. He risked opening his eyes, squinting at them. The nurse looked affronted, the doctor interested, and John… John looked really, incongruously happy. Like if there needed to be an image of happiness in the dictionary, it was how John Watson looked right now.

“Is that better?” John asked, and Sherlock dropped his hands and nodded carefully. John beamed. It was very nearly blinding, and Sherlock blinked a few more times to adjust to the glow.

“OK I’ll hold off over here until you’ve had a proper chance to wake up, alright Mr. Holmes?” said the doctor. The nurse scowled at her in disapproval. Sherlock nodded again, reluctant to speak but unsure as to why. “Great! Now I’d like to explain what we did during the surgery, let me know if you have any questions. Then later on this afternoon we will try to get you booked in for an MRI…” Sherlock sat up and shook his head furiously, back and forth, and oh, did that hurt! He gasped in pain, dropping his head back into his hands, spine bowed. Cautious footsteps approached – John.

“Can you get some more pain medication?” John said, voice edged with annoyance towards the staff. “Sherlock? It’s alright you don’t have to do an MRI today,” he said encouragingly. Sherlock concentrated on breathing, shook his head between his hands again. No MRI!

“Dr. Watson, I’m sorry but…”

“He DOESN’T have to do an MRI today, alright? We can talk about it more later, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with his brother.” By the sound, Sherlock could tell that he had turned around. Was squared off, facing the doctor and nurse, standing between the two of them and Sherlock. He found it a bit easier to breathe, picturing that, even as embarrassment threatened to roast him from the inside out. He really needed to get home and away from all these people to reset and come back to himself. There was a bit of a fraught pause, and to his shame he realized that as well as not wanting to speak, he didn’t even want to LISTEN to what was going to be said.

Get a hold of yourself! His inner critic snarled in his own voice, appalled at his behavior. So many people had said that to him, especially when he was younger. Especially in medical centers.

He stiffly raised his head and let his hands drop down, dragging his eyes open and forcing them to open properly and not squint. He interlaced his fingers, locking them rigidly together as he had learned to do to avoid twitching, and wiped his face clean of all signs of mental or physical upset that he could identify. Muscle by muscle he forced his expression back under his control. It was hard – much harder than usual. John didn’t look happy anymore. He had turned around to look at Sherlock, was only a step away, and the worry rolled off him like mist, thick and cloying. Sherlock forced his own chin around to look at John fully, exercised iron control to keep his face blank. He turned that neutral gaze onto the other doctor quickly as he realized if he looked at John for too long, he was probably going to start bawling and not be able to stop. Unacceptable!

The doctor had backed off another step, and now her eyebrows were raised as she took in his rigid posture, straight spine, chin held up a centimetre more than most people, breathing smoothly transitioned from the upset gasping of the traumatized to the rational and quite frankly, bored. He waited for her to speak, narrowing his eyes slightly when she didn’t.

Hurry up! Hurry up and go away!

He raised one sardonic eyebrow and she blinked a couple of times, taken aback.

“Uh… OK… Well then we can discuss the full treatment plan later this afternoon. So, I’ll just go over the surgery, in that case? Mr. Holmes?” Sherlock didn’t move. In his peripheral vision, John shifted his weight around but didn’t come any closer. He was getting more worried, and it was all Sherlock could do not to reach out towards him. No!

“Alright, so we removed all of the electrodes. There were sixteen in total. The worst of the damage was caused by the four that ran in a line just above your right ear, running straight backwards. The burns were too severe I’m afraid, so we had to remove quite a bit of excess tissue. What we did was take a piece of skin about one cm by five cm from under your arm, and used it to sew the scalp back into place.” She paused, waiting for a reaction. Sherlock tightened his core muscles, refusing to budge an inch. Her words seemed utterly meaningless and he wished she would just go away, or get one with whatever the next thing was they would force him to do.

Seeing she wasn’t going to get him to engage, she continued with a frown, “The site under your arm should heal nicely by the way. The skin there is very stretchy, though I do want to tell you it would be better if you could try and put some weight on – that’s something we can discuss later as well. Anyway, of the remaining areas on the scalp, on four more we needed to remove some tissue but were able to close them without the need for any transplanted skin – those are in a similar line above your right ear. The rest are at varying degrees of burn intensity and we will need to keep an eye on them. The plastic surgeons did everything they could to avoid scarring, but it is going to unavoidable I’m afraid. Unfortunately it is unlikely that the hair will grow back in most of the areas affected.”

Sherlock appreciated her calm and matter-of-fact demeanor as she rattled all of this off, and hoped she would continue in that fashion when the inevitable list of evaluations and tests approached. He would not react as he had before. They were going to make him do another MRI? Fine. They could do what they wanted, they would get nothing out of him. He could sense he was unnerving her and she wanted to get away – her posture had shifted throughout the monologue until she was angled towards the door – but she didn’t leave. The nurse was peering at him like he was a lab rat. He kept his eyes resolutely away from John.

There was another silence. After a short while, he couldn’t help it: his eyebrows drew closer together of their own accord and he leaned his head slightly to one side. Why was she still here? He risked a brief look over at John and wished he hadn’t – John had one hand pressed over his mouth, the other arm wrapped around his chest. He looked like someone had run over his pet dog. Sherlock’s chest constricted, though he fought down any sign of it. Was it the hair? John was upset because it wouldn’t grow back properly? True, it was going to make him look even stranger than he already did, but when you looked as strange as Sherlock, he hadn’t thought it would make that much difference.

Would… would John not want to be seen with him, now?

He swallowed and quickly corrected his posture, head straight, chin pushed up a further notch. It doesn’t matter, he told himself furiously. It’s just transport!

There was obviously something in this situation he was completely misreading, because instead of darting out of the room as he hoped, the blasted woman looked him over appraisingly and took a few steps closer. And John! John moved out of the way and let her! Sherlock kept still as she approached, muscles beginning to tremble with the effort. John had backed completely against the opposite wall, the hand over his mouth now a fist, eyes wide and face pale.

There was a sudden sharp movement, as the doctor reached for the head of the bed. Sherlock twitched as her hand went past, immediately furious with himself for moving, but she didn’t touch him. There was a mechanical sound, and the head of the bed started to rise. He stared between it and her as it slowly came closer, until it was almost raised as high as he was forcing himself to sit.

“This might be more comfortable, hmm? Mr. Holmes?” she said, stepping back again. Sherlock felt wrong-footed, and he knew he’d lost control of his expression and must be looking as confused as he felt. He leaned away from the now-raised bed section, crunching his stomach even tighter. He looked between the raised part and the doctor again, looked for the trick. “I can see you don’t believe me,” she went on calmly, “but I’m here to help you. So are the other staff. So is your friend John here. If you won’t cooperate with what I think is best, would you at least consider him?”

“Wait, no…” interrupted John. It came out as a strained croak, not happy, not glowing. Dimmed and wan and sad. “You don’t have to manipulate him like that.” The words were laced through with guilt and worry.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” replied the doctor. “Go and see to some more pain meds for Mr. Holmes,” she told the nurse. The nurse ducked out of the room and they all watched the door close behind her. “If he’s not going to do what I suggest, and he’s not going to advocate for himself, then what are we left with, here?” John opened his mouth to give what was probably an angry retort, but stopped as Sherlock exhaled angrily through his nose. The soft sound of annoyance cause both he and the doctor to look back at Sherlock – and he abandoned the difficult mask at that point, too tired, and glared at her.

“Ah, so there is someone in there,” she said approvingly, surprising him again. She stepped up and put both hands on the bed rail. “You don’t like the suggestion that you are weak, that you can’t make your own decisions?” Sherlock intensified his glare but she didn’t budge, just waited. He finally gave a single jerky nod. Across the room, John’s arm finally dropped down from its tense position across his chest.

“Well, I might be annoyed at that too,” said the doctor. “Annoyed enough to open my mouth and say what I want, what I need, what I am willing to put up with. You have your friend over there terrified that you have brain damage you know, because you refuse to say anything.”

“Look I told you…” Though still wrong, John sounded a bit better then. Angrier.

“Yes I know, don’t manipulate him,” said the doctor. She tapped the rail between them a couple of times. “Do you want to know what I think, Mr. Holmes? I think that you have been under the care of medical professionals many times – perhaps against your will. I think you like to feel in control, of what you do and say and how people see you, and now here you are, vulnerable and in pain in an unfamiliar place. I think you just underwent something horrific, again in a hospital, so you have decided that there’s no point in speaking up at all. What do you think? Am I close?”

Sherlock gaped at her, mouth open slightly until he remembered himself and closed it, embarrassed. She smiled, and it was sympathetic, but just then that didn’t annoy him as it might have previously.

“You aren’t the only one who is good at making deductions. I have to be good at it, in this job. My name is Frida, by the way. Doctor Frida Galesoni, since you didn’t ask.” Sherlock flushed. “And what about you, shall I keep calling you Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock looked her over more closely, trying to ignore the hum of the deductions coming in from different parts of his brain, and the headache that flared up again along with them. She had deep laugh lines around her eyes. Sherlock wondered what she looked like when she smiled – probably… well, nice. John took a few steps closer again, hovering. Hopeful. If nothing else, it was that hope that finally knocked the blockage out of his throat.

“Sherlock,” he offered, quietly, repentant, finally letting himself sink back and let the bed to take his weight. He pushed the blue blanket away again and Dr. Frida moved it to the end of the bed. She and John drew him into a quiet conversation about pain medication. He sipped on a glass of water that the returning nurse proffered, and very slowly it got a bit easier to speak up again.

He had been right – Dr. Frida’s smile was nice - though not as nice as John’s.

***********************************************

John leaned his head back against the wall and experimentally rolled his shoulder. It was still stiff and aching, but there was some improvement. He was back in the waiting room, staring blindly at the TV which was showing a rowdy evening talk-show, though thankfully the sound was muted.

The day was progressing reasonably well. Sherlock was still far from acting like himself, but the small improvements kept coming. When he had first woken up and regarded he and Dr. Frida with tense, mute hostility, John had honestly thought his heart might be breaking. Since the first time they met, Sherlock had always disliked hospital visits, even when some rooftop chase or chemistry accident had made them absolutely necessary – but it had never been this bad. He was clearly finding giving up any control in this situation incredibly difficult, but he was doing it, and John was filled with quiet pride. He also thought Dr. Frida deserved a medal. He remembered Angelo saying something, ‘It takes a city to know Sherlock Holmes,’ and here in this hospital ward, he was starting to understand what that meant. Some random minion of Mycroft’s had dropped off some clothes and other essentials and John had managed to fit in both a hot meal in the canteen and a glorious twenty minute shower in the family room.

“Alright John?” Lestrade walked in and dropped down into a chair like a stone. He was rumpled, though he too had managed a change of clothes, but was obviously still running low on sleep.

“Greg, mate, really you don’t have to be here. You’ve done more than enough,” John said, sitting up properly.

“Give over,” Greg scoffed. “Anyway, I have to get some sort of statement out of his majesty. How’s he doing today?”

“Not so great when he first woke up, but getting better. He’s being evaluated right now – hand-eye coordination, memory, they’re checking his speech…”

“Is he still slurring like he was?” Greg asked worriedly.

“No. He sounds normal, just…” John wasn’t sure how to explain it.

“Just?”

“…quiet? It’s not really the right word. I mean, he is being quiet, in general. Like… cowed. They’re really having to push him to say what he wants – to say anything really. It’s like he thinks it’s pointless.”

“Well, he hates places like this,” Greg reminded him.

“I know. About the only thing he will say with any conviction is that he wants to go home, and I don’t know how Mycroft is working his magic here, but I’m sure all these specialists don’t usually work into the evening.”

“So they’ll let him out tonight?” Greg said, incredulous.

“No, definitely not tonight, but maybe tomorrow. After an MRI.”

“Ah. Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Dr. Watson?” A new nurse stuck her head around the door. “You wanted to know when they were finishing up?”

“Thanks,” he said, summoning up the strength needed to get up and out of the chair. Greg rose too, eyeing him carefully.

“You been taking your meds?” He asked.

“Yeah, just tired. C’mon.” They went down the hall and were let in by Dr. Frida. Sherlock looked worn out, propped up on the bed, but there was something a bit more relaxed about him. His eyes looked a bit clearer, and there was a positive quirk to the tired lips.

“Alright looks like you have visitors again Mr. Popular,” Dr. Frida teased. Sherlock rolled his eyes, but there was a little smile there too. John felt himself relaxing as he realised – Sherlock liked her. “Are you going to tell them the good news?” she asked. Sherlock looked a bit more reluctant at that, but said,

“Apparently, I’m not crazy.” It was still a lower volume than John was used to, but that rumbling baritone was like a salve to a battered soul.

Now it was Dr. Frida’s turn to roll her eyes. “Your sanity was never in question today, Sherlock. What he meant to say, is our specialists all agree that there are no obvious symptoms of brain damage – though I have been promised a cooperative patient for tomorrow’s MRI, haven’t I?”

Sherlock nodded, even more reluctant.

“Good man. Well then I’ll leave you to it. Have a good evening,” she nodded at both John and Greg, then left.

“Alright, sunshine?” Greg said, all enthusiasm, walking around the bed and sitting down on the converting chair. Sherlock huffed, rearranging himself on the bed to look at him properly. There was a new soft red blanket over his legs, and he drew it up to mid-chest.

“Lestrade,” he offered, all mock-annoyance, but John saw through it.

“How are you feeling?” Greg asked.

“Spiffy,” said Sherlock, folding his arms.

“Oh come on, what have I done now?”

“You want a statement,” Sherlock said, but he did loosen his stance. One hand started gripping and loosening in the folds of the blanket. Greg sighed.

“Well yeah, you got me there. I did want to have a bit of a visit first though.” John grabbed another chair from the corner of the room and sat next to Greg.

“No need,” said Sherlock. “Home tomorrow.” He looked at John for confirmation.

“Hopefully, yes.” John expected a smile for that, but Sherlock looked impassive.

“So are you ready?” Sherlock asked Greg, who sighed again but got out a recording device.

John listened as Sherlock recounted what had happened in brief, terse sentences. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but it became increasingly impossible.

“…he shot the gun into the ceiling once. Told me to cut off my hair, which I did…”

“Wait,” Greg croaked. Sherlock stopped, face impassive. It took a moment for Greg to compose himself.

“You… you had to cut off your own hair?”

“I already said that, yes. We are going to be here all night if you keep asking me to repeat myself,” Sherlock said, almost sounding like his old self. John had leaned over to grip the plastic chair legs beneath him. They flexed in his tight grip.

“Right,” Greg said faintly. “OK sorry, go on.”

Sherlock did, and John could tell it was taking a great deal of effort for Greg not to interrupt again. Sherlock breezed through traumatic events as if he were talking about the weather. John tried to keep himself under control as well, thinking that perhaps Sherlock just wanted to get it all over with. At only one point did he pause in his re-telling.

“He… well, he said something. About wanting to understand me. Put a hand on my chest. He… he kissed my head…” He stopped and raised a hand, rubbing at the bandages on his forehead absently. The hand dropped to itch around the neckline of the hospital gown he was wearing, and John noticed the skin there was red and irritated. He also scratched at his chest, hand rubbing in circles. John fought to keep quiet, to keep still, but the urge to get up and break something was very strong. Sherlock looked blankly at nothing for a moment, then continued, “… then he tried to kiss me on the lips, but I bit him. Almost bit through his lip,” he added with a hint of satisfaction, bringing his hands back to his lap to lace together. Greg smiled at that, but it was a grim, thin thing.

Sherlock told them the rest, up until he had heard them arrive in the control room, then went quiet. Greg made a verbal note to finish up the recording, then turned off the device. He held it loosely in his hands for a moment, looking at the floor.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said at last, looking up. His face was full of compassion, and as John could have predicted it made Sherlock shift uncomfortably.

“It’s fine. Transport,” he shrugged.

“It is NOT fine,” said Greg fiercely, and Sherlock startled a bit, eyes wide. “And it is NOT just transport. We have had this conversation before, don’t tell me you forgot. You’re too smart for that.” Sherlock looked away, but nodded. Not for the first time, John wondered about their history and if he would ever know the full story.

“Right,” Greg sighed, still sounding pretty annoyed. “Hopefully you get out of here tomorrow anyway.” He stood up, and John walked him to the door, but Greg stopped on Sherlock’s other side first. He put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, just as he had when he was unconscious after the surgery. Sherlock looked down at his hand warily, but didn’t try to shake it off.

Greg spoke with an intensity that was unusual for him, and Sherlock stared. “I know you hate it here. The doctors know it, John knows it. None of us want you to be here, so work with everyone for once in your life and you’ll be able to go home,” he said. Sherlock’s eyes dropped. “You don’t think so?” said Greg, coaxing. “You think they’ll want to keep you here?” A one-shoulder shrug that spoke volumes. “Why?” asked Greg, tone softening. “Why do you think they’ll keep you here?”

Sherlock’s eyes flickered around the room – to John, to the door, to Greg’s hand, to Greg’s face.

“Doctors often lie,” he said finally, both hands gripping the blanket in his lap. John took an unconscious step backwards, and Sherlock looked at him properly then. “Not you!” he said, voice rising. “Not you, John. I mean… other doctors,” he finished lamely.

“Other doctors have kept you in places when you wanted to leave?” John asked. Sherlock looked between them again and nodded slowly. He said,

“For tests. Observations. They wanted to know… what’s wrong with me.” He tried his aloof shrug again, but it didn’t come off. John was surprised the red blanket wasn’t in bits at its current treatment.

“There’s nothing wrong with you!” John said, and it came out a lot louder and stronger than he intended. Sherlock blinked at him a few times, obviously no idea what to say, and Greg grinned.

“You should try listening to him, you know,” Greg said, giving Sherlock’s shoulder a final pat. “He’s the one doctor that doesn’t lie, right? Take it easy, both of you. I’ll pop round Baker Street in a few days.” He smiled at them both, then left. John closed the door and turned back to look at Sherlock, who was staring at the hands in his lap.

“I mean it, Sherlock.” He moved closer. This was the first time they had been both awake and together since they had left Bart’s lab, and John wasn’t sure exactly what he should be doing. He settled on putting both hands on the top of the rail between them. Sherlock didn’t look up. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” Sherlock frowned, smoothing the blanket, then finally looked up. His expression was open, but skeptical.

“A lot of people disagree with you,” he said quietly. John leaned forward, resting his forearms on the rail and letting it take some of his weight.

“You’re always telling me that people are idiots, Sherlock. And you’re right. Most of them are. They look at differences, and they see something wrong, something to be fixed. Something… freakish.” Sherlock smiled ruefully but didn’t reply. “You aren’t a freak. You aren’t a weirdo, or a machine, or a psychopath or a sociopath or whatever else you’ve convinced yourself you must be. You’re just like the rest of us – you’re human. The most human-human that I’ve ever met.”

Some intense emotion settled over Sherlock’s face then, his eyes a bit red, and John worried that he had pushed too far. Sherlock sniffed, once, and nodded sharply. John cheered for that small sign of agreement and decided to back off. He stood up walked around the bed again to put away the chair he had moved, saw Sherlock swipe at his eyes once but pretended he didn’t. When he came over to fix up the chair-bed, Sherlock was composed again.

“I don’t know about you,” said John, grappling with the infernal thing, “but I’m done in. I’ve got your pajamas here, you want to change?”

“Yes, please,” said Sherlock, and he sat up off the bed immediately. “I think they must make these things out of wire wool,” he said, pulling at the gown, lips twisted.

“I wish you’d have said something,” John said, pulling one of the T-shirts a pair of soft pants that Sherlock usually wore at home out of a bag.

“No point,” said Sherlock, and John wondered where he’d heard him say that before. He un-clicked the bed rail and swung his legs around, putting them carefully on the floor.

“Hang on a second,” John said, sliding an arm around the thin shoulders before he could second-guess himself. “I’m not having you crack your nose on the floor just for some pajamas,” he said, lightly. Sherlock said nothing, eyes on the floor, finding his footing. John pulled away slightly once he was standing. “Alright?”

“Yes, but…”

“Yes?” John watched Sherlock struggle with himself.

“Can… can you help?” he asked at last, and John felt like cheering.

“Of course, idiot,” he said fondly, taking the pants and rolling up the legs, laying them on the floor. He helped Sherlock step into them and get them up to his knees where they disappeared under the hated gown, and Sherlock pulled them up the rest of the way, face a bit red. Once that was done, John carefully maneuvered the gown up and over the various bandages and dressings, thankful that the IV had been taken out earlier. He noted with concern a deep bruise on Sherlock’s chest, along with a multitude of scratches, apparently self-inflicted. He was still way too thin as well, ribs visible under pale skin. He picked up the shirt, keeping his thoughts to himself with difficulty.

“The other way around,” said Sherlock, crossing his arms in front of himself, nervous. John was confused, he turned the shirt back-to-front but that was obviously the wrong way. “No, I mean, turn it inside out. So the seams are on the outside,” said Sherlock. Remembering then that he often saw Sherlock wearing his T-shirts inside out, he had thought it was laziness, but apparently he had been making assumptions again. He turned it inside out and helped Sherlock into it, who sighed contentedly and sat back up on the bed, legs swinging off the side. “The seams and the labels are itchy,” he said by way of explanation.

“Ah. Is that why you get your suits made, too?” John asked. On impulse he also jumped up and sat on the bed, thigh almost touching Sherlock’s. Sherlock paused as he had been about to reply, but then seemed to accept the new arrangement readily enough.

“Partly, yes. There aren’t many fabrics I can tolerate. Plus tailored suits look better,” he said with a little smile. Without the blanket, he had now started wringing his hands together in his lap, over and over. John didn’t want to make him nervous. With the bravery of a soldier, he reached out quickly and grabbed the left hand, pulling it towards him, palm up. He felt a flush in his cheeks, but refused to let embarrassment stop him.

“Have you ever tried a stress ball, or a Rubik’s cube? Something for your hands to do?” he asked, keeping his tone light and breezy as possible as he held the hand in his left, tracing the bruising around the wrist with his left. Nothing to see here, Sherlock, don’t freak out… There was a pause and he almost held his breath.

“I… no. I tried with paperclips in my pockets, for a while. But they stabbed at my fingers,” he said, and the fingers on the hand John was holding curled up around his thumb as if to demonstrate. There was a fine tremble in the limb now and John knew to tread very carefully. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted, or what Sherlock wanted… just that he was happier when they were close together, and Sherlock seemed to be as well. He took a deep breath and looked up at him. There was some tension in Sherlock’s face, but he had that same unguarded and trusting look in his eyes as he had at the lab, and some of John’s anxiety melted away.

“Is this OK?” he asked, squeezing the hand. Sherlock stared at him for a moment, considering, and then something absolutely extraordinary happened.

He pulled his hand away, and John felt a stab of disappointment, but it was quickly replaced by happy incredulity as Sherlock slid the hand under his arm and around his back, leaning forward awkwardly to let his other arm complete an unmistakable hug. John was so surprised he didn’t even move for a second, but as soon as he felt an unsure tension begin to creep into Sherlock’s arms, he wrapped his own around Sherlock’s back and hugged him as tightly as he could.

Actually, a little too tightly. With an ‘oof’ sound, Sherlock slid off the bed, feet back on the floor, and John’s legs were knocked to one side as he fell into him. John couldn’t help it – he laughed, still sat on the bed, not letting go.

“I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be me in the hospital bed,” Sherlock said into his neck, and while he wasn’t laughing, he sounded happy. John laughed again, feeling better than he had in days.

“You caught me, I did all this to steal the better bed,” he said into Sherlock’s ear, bandages scratching his forehead.

“Thought so,” said Sherlock, then relaxed completely into the hug. He breathed a few times, deep and content against John’s neck, and John thought he could have stayed like that forever.

“Smelling me again?” he said quietly, after a minute or two of peace. He rubbed one hand up and down Sherlock’s back, earning another happy exhale.

“Can’t help it,” said Sherlock, but then his feet slid a little on the floor and he pushed back on John’s shoulders to remain upright. John grabbed him by the forearms, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

“Whoah there, Bambi,” he joked, and Sherlock’s face wrinkled in confusion as he found his balance again.

“Bambi?” he asked. John laughed, and Sherlock smiled bashfully. He looked so much better.

“It’s not important. Disney character. Though it might make a cute nickname if you keep stumbling around like this,” he said. Sherlock looked scandalised. With one more chuckle, John jumped down from the bed and helped Sherlock climb back up onto it, pulling his legs up and raising the bed rail again.

“You going to be able to sleep now?” John asked. A piece of bandage on Sherlock’s head had become dislodged and he reached out to tuck it back into place, eliciting another little hum of contentment from Sherlock.

“Yes, I think so,” said Sherlock, and then he yawned. He looked… softer, now. John smiled at him and turned back to the guest bed, grabbing his pillow and blanket from the shelf above. Sherlock reached behind his bed to turn off the light. Some light filtered in from the window, but all was calm. After a few minutes, John heard rustling from Sherlock’s direction. He could just make out his face through the bars of rail, the tips of long fingers sneaking through.

“John?” he asked quietly.

“Hmm? Everything alright?”

“Yes… it’s just… the hugs. And, the rest…” John rolled over so he was facing him. He couldn’t make out Sherlock’s expression, but the tone was anxious. He supposed it might be easier for his friend to ask the big questions, now the lights were low. Sherlock was such a strong force of nature when he was out and about solving crimes, but much of the human experience seemed to cause him great difficulty.

Don’t assume, John told himself, forcing back years of ingrained idiocy that wanted to make some jocular lad-code comment.

“Yes?” he asked instead. “Don’t you like them?”

“No! I mean… yes. Yes I do. Do you?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it,” he said calmly, reasonably.

“Oh.” He waited to see if there was going to be anymore. Nothing, then Sherlock started to turn away.

“But it’s bothering you?” he asked, wanting to keep the momentum. “Are you worried what’s going to happen?”

“I’m not ‘worried’,” Sherlock said quietly, a bit affronted. John smiled though Sherlock couldn’t see it.

“Of course not,” agreed John, and Sherlock huffed. “I am, though.” Sherlock rolled back to look at him again.

“You are?”

“Yeah, ‘course. I don’t want you to get hurt.” It felt like the most natural thing in the world to say.

“Me?!” said Sherlock, still quiet, but obviously surprised.

“Yeah,” said John. “I want you to be happy. I don’t want to make a mistake.” Sherlock seemed stunned into silence. “Did you not know that?” John said, letting his voice reflect how stupid that seemed to him.

“I… no. I thought… well. I thought I would be the one making all the mistakes,” he said softly.

“Idiot,” said John, meaning it. Sherlock chuckled.

“Better than ‘Bambi’,” he said.

“Hmmm I don’t think so.” Another pause then, but it was calmer, more thoughtful.

“So… we both want the other to be happy,” Sherlock mused slowly.

“Yup.”

“What… what would make you happy, John?”

“That’s a big question. One we both need to think about, I think. You matter to me, Sherlock. Maybe more than anyone has ever mattered. When I thought you had died yesterday…” he broke off, not wanting to rehash the recent trauma during this quiet conversation. “Well… it was not good.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Sherlock agreed solemnly. “But…”

“Yes? It’s OK, ask whatever you like.”

“But you aren’t gay,” Sherlock said in a quick rush. “And I’m…”

“You’re…?”

“Well… I don’t know. I don’t think I’m anything.” It was a blunt, sad statement.

“You’re a bloody moron, so that’s something,” said John, trying to make him laugh. It didn’t work. “Look, Sherlock, it’s hard to explain, but I don’t think you have to be gay, or straight, or anything really in order to care about someone a lot. I’ve got to do some research about it all to be honest…”

“Research?” said Sherlock, surprised again.

“Well, yeah? That’s what we do when we don’t understand something, isn’t it? Find out about it?”

“You want to do research, about this?” Sherlock sounded absolutely flabbergasted.

“Yes! As soon as we get home, actually.”

“You want to research… us?”

“We are going to be here all night if you keep asking me to repeat myself,” said John, trying and failing to imitate Sherlock’s private school accent. Sherlock laughed, sounding like it had been shocked out of him against his will. John wished he could see him properly.

“We’re going to be here all night anyway,” he said after a moment, a little bit of his impish personality showing through all the confusion. Feeling better then, thought John, pleased.

“Hmmm true but some of us are old and tired and have to sleep at some point,” he said.

“You’re not old,” Sherlock said immediately, and John felt warmed by the simple statement.

“Older than you, so what I say goes,” he said, flipping around again onto his back. “Go to sleep, Sherlock. It’s all fine. I’ll see you in the morning.” He couldn’t help the yawn that cracked his jaw just then, and heard Sherlock settle down in his bed.

“OK. Good night, John.”

And then finally, after hours of stress and pain and at the end there, some kind of victory, John fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! So despite all my careful planning, it is going to end up in 13 parts instead of 12. Everyone just would not stop talking and doing interesting things, no matter how much I tried to stop them, and there's nothing I really want to edit out so.... there will be one more part hahahaha! 
> 
> I hope some of this angsty, hurt/comfort-y, emotionally tangled-up mess makes up for it ;-)
> 
> Comments and kudos as always greatly appreciated.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final and longest chapter (by far), so grab a beverage, settle down, and I'll see you at the end...

John woke up slowly, disorientated for a moment until he looked over and saw Sherlock, still sleeping. It was a shock to see the bandages covering his head, as though during sleep John had managed to forget the whole horrible ordeal. He sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily, and looked at his watch: 8:35am. The MRI was scheduled for 10:00am and loomed over the advance of the day like a dark storm front.

He had slept in his clothes, but even so felt so much better rested. Sherlock had turned towards him again during the night, face mushed into his pillow and both hands curled up under his chin, hiding the sight of the bruising on his throat. All the bandages and dressings would need to be changed today – Dr. Frida was due back at 9:00am to remove them prior to the MRI. She was going to bring in the plastic surgeon again to inspect the surgery sites on Sherlock’s head as well. Looking at Sherlock’s relaxed sleeping face, John wished he could somehow spare him from what was coming, but knew it was better to get him up and mentally prepared. He got out of bed then crouched down so he was eye-level with his sleeping friend, and couldn’t help pausing for a second to observe the usually-controlled face.

The bruising that John now knew came from having his face grabbed, shook, and hit had developed in colour – blacks, greens and yellows leeched out from the still-present purple. Though asleep, there were dark smudges of fatigue under each of the closed eyes, long dark lashes still over deep waters. The white bandages that covered so many hurts on his head had remained in place overnight, however there were new red lines around the edges showing Sherlock had been scratching again in his sleep. But despite all of this, he looked peaceful this morning, resting properly for the first time in days.

John wondered with some hope if he would get to see this face relaxed in sleep again, but backed off from the thought almost as fast as it arrived. He and Sherlock had some difficult waters to navigate if they were going to be… well, that was part of the problem. What were they going to be? Something more than friends, but not-quite lovers? John had been so happy the previous night when Sherlock had reached out of his own accord and hugged him, but this was an extraordinary circumstance. Once he was back home and feeling better, would they be going back to the status quo? Sherlock had stated so clearly, ‘But you aren’t gay,’ as if that meant there was nowhere for any of this to go. Was he right?

Thoughts turning dark and legs starting to cramp from crouching, John shook himself mentally. Now was not the time, and he had meant every word he had said – he did want to do some research about unconventional relationships, and possibly talk to Harry as well before he started inventing more reasons to worry. Mycroft had put the idea in his head, and loathe as he was to be in any sort of debt to the elder Holmes, he was grateful.

“Sherlock,” he said softly. No reaction, so he reached through the rail bars and lightly traced a line down the back of one curled hand. “Hey, Sherlock, time to wake up,” he said a little louder. Sherlock frowned in his sleep, and John couldn’t help grinning to himself as despite the bruises, Sherlock nuzzled his face further into the pillow. John rubbed the back of the hand a little harder. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, come on, we’ve got things to do.”

The hand he was stroking twitched and curled further in on itself, even as the blue-green eyes flickered open and closed. The frown disappeared as Sherlock gave a big yawn, and John was reminded of them being back on the floor of Bart’s lab, a stab of protectiveness running through him. The eyes opened again, and Sherlock regarded him first with an adorable amount of sleepy confusion, then with a kind of startled uncertainty.

“…John?”

“Yup. Good morning,” he said with a smile and removed his hand from between the bars, standing up. Sherlock stared at him a few seconds more, then looked further around the room and seemed to relax a little.

“Hospital,” he said, as if confirming it to himself. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned again, starting to sit up. John moved to operate the controls to elevate the head of the bed.

“Yes, but not for much longer. Sleep OK?” Once the bed was all the way up, he drew open the blinds which made Sherlock squint. “Too much light?”

“No, it’s fine,” said Sherlock, and John had a sudden thought that Sherlock used that word a lot. Too much. Still sleepy, John watched him reach up and scratch around the bandages again.

“Hey come on, stop that,” he said, walking back over to stand by the bed. “Dr. Frida will be here any minute to take the bandages off and she won’t be pleased if you’ve scratched yourself to ribbons.” Sherlock dropped his hand, looking contrite.

“Sorry,” he said, and now it was John’s turn to frown. He remembered vividly the lab again, how in the middle of everything, Sherlock had apologised for the same thing – for losing control and not being able to stop it.

“It’s alright,” he said, which wasn’t enough but would have to do. Sherlock yawned again, then a thoughtful look came over him.

“…Sleeping Beauty?” he said doubtfully.

“Ah so you heard that did you?” laughed John, and was glad that he didn’t feel embarrassed to be caught at all. “It seemed appropriate,” he said, and risked a cheeky wink. A light flush crept into Sherlock’s cheeks at that.

“Disney again?” he asked, smoothing out his blanket, eyes wandering over the room as if not sure where to look.

“Yep. Sounds like I have some sort of Disney obsession doesn’t it? I promise you though, it’s a story most people know. Sleeping Beauty gets put under a spell to sleep for a hundred years,” he explained. Then a bit teasing, “Seriously, we have to get you up to speed with some of these children’s stories.”

“Not very child-friendly,” Sherlock remarked, yawning again and looking over at the door. “How does it end?”

“Oh, uh…” John stuttered, suddenly realizing the corner he had painted himself into. “Well… she sleeps for a hundred years, and then a prince comes and wakes her up… with a kiss.” Sherlock’s eyes flicked back over at that, surprised, and John knew that now it was him that was blushing. He tried to backpedal. “I mean, that’s usually how these stories conventionally end, you know – the spell is broken with a kiss.” He rubbed the back of his head, uncomfortable, and Sherlock continued to look at him, eyebrows raised.

They were interrupted from further awkwardness by the arrival of Dr. Frida, and judging by Sherlock’s expression, it wasn’t only John who was relieved.

“Ah you’re both up, excellent!” she said. “Dr. Matthews will be here in a few minutes to take a look at your stitches Sherlock, so shall we get all those bandages off?”

“Yes please,” said Sherlock with a sigh, itching his forehead again before he caught himself. He moved his hand down with some force, latching his fingers together as John had seen him do so many times before. John wondered just how many of Sherlock’s ‘poses’ were in fact designed by the genius to keep his rebellious hands and other ticks under control.

“Do you want me to go?” John asked, trying to be tactful.

“No!” It must have come out a bit more forcefully that he expected, because Sherlock looked at bit shocked at himself.

“Why don’t you give me a hand, Dr. Watson?” asked Dr. Frida, holding out an extra pair of gloves towards him. He took them gratefully and came to stand next to her, thanking whoever might be listening that Mycroft had dug up someone competent for Sherlock’s care. Their patient sat a little straighter in the bed and folded both arms tightly across his stomach as Dr. Frida reached over and found the end of the bandage.

“Alright, let’s do it,” she said, and started unwinding. John ended up moving around the other side eventually as some fibres were stuck to the dressings underneath and needed to be gently eased away. Dr. Frida kept up a bit of a running commentary, though Sherlock stayed silent. The bandages had been wrapped in two layers, and once the top one was off it once again became obvious that there was no hair hiding underneath. The shape of the skull was revealed, as were discolorations in the bandages where the wounds beneath had wept. Dr. Frida put the first bundle of bandages into the bin.

“OK so one more of those to go, then if Dr. Matthews isn’t here I’ll go and find him to see about the dressings. Ready?”

Sherlock nodded, but his face had drawn paler, the arms wrapped tighter, the eyes firmly down. John looked over at Dr. Frida and she jutted her chin at Sherlock as she reached for the end of the final bandage. John nodded, took of the gloves and went and put them in the bin. He came back and put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, causing him to look up.

“So what do you fancy for breakfast after this? Or you want to wait until we get home?” he asked, tone light. Dr. Frida kept on carefully unwrapping, slivers of scalp becoming visible. Sherlock’s breathing had changed, becoming slower but more urgent.

“I… I don’t think there’s anything… edible at home,” he said, keeping his eyes on John’s face and resolutely not looking at Dr. Frida or what she might be doing.

“The same can probably be said for the hospital canteen,” said John sarcastically, gripping the shoulder a little more tightly. Sherlock tried to smile, but his breathing remained anxious.

“We can … order a delivery… later…” he said, then he suddenly closed his eyes and squeezed them shut. John looked at Frida who was grimacing apologetically as the bandage caught and tugged on a sticky bit of dressing beneath. It was almost completely off now, though John kept his attention on Sherlock’s face.

“Sure we can,” he said to Sherlock. Keeping one hand on his shoulder, he reached under Sherlock’s armpit for the hand that was trapped under there, and gave it a squeeze. After a second, Sherlock squeezed back, though he didn’t speak again or open his eyes. Their grip remained tight, and John decided to keep quiet, as the last bandage was freed and Sherlock’s head and wound dressings were exposed to the air.

“All done,” said Frida, looking Sherlock with some sympathy before depositing the second bandage into the bin. “We can do the arm later. I’ll go and find Dr. Matthews?” she asked John.

“Sure,” said John, though starting to worry how he was going to handle the situation. She left, and at the sound of the closing door Sherlock deflated and sagged back on the raised bed, eyes opening. He squeezed John’s hand one more time then let go so he could rub at his eyes. John used the opportunity to sneak a better look at the damage. There were sterile clear dressings dotted here and there, some covering burns and some covering stitches. The main site ran in a long thin line above Sherlock’s right ear, going from the temple to the back of the head. From what John could see, though some fluid had leaked from a few of the dressings, the skin looked a good colour and the stitches were in place.

“Well?” Sherlock asked, and John was glad to hear his breathing was approaching normal again. “How bad is it?” He looked up at John then and his face was completely unguarded. His eyes were bright and fearful.

“It’s not bad,” said John, and Sherlock grimaced and looked away. “Hey, you asked and I’m answering. They did a really good job,” he said. Sherlock turned his head even further away, and the shoulder under John’s palm became tense. Feeling out of his depth, John thought about what he might want in this situation. “Do you want to see? I’ll take some photos on my phone.” Mycroft’s people had delivered both of their phones along with clothes, though John had no idea where or when he had lost his during all the excitement. They had even been fully charged up upon delivery. It was telling of Sherlock’s mood in general that he hadn’t asked for his once. Sherlock slowly turned his head back, though still didn’t actually look at him.

“OK,” he said, and John moved away to find his phone. He came back and decided the best thing to do was to be all-business about this.

“Alright, turn to face the door,” he instructed, taking a few photos in quick succession. Sherlock did so, eyes still away. “OK look down… good… Now look at the window…” he stepped forward. “Let me see the back,” he said, and Sherlock swivelled in his seat, posture relaxing a little as John took some close-ups of the different wounds. “Alright last one, look at me,” said John, and Sherlock turned again and looked directly at him. John’s finger hovered over the shutter button, but he didn’t take another photo. Sherlock no longer looked fearful – his eyes gazed straight and unafraid into the camera. He looked… strong. Brave. Unstoppable. He looked like he had the day they had met: there was some quality there that went beyond hair, or injuries, or clothes, and sent a jolt of electricity right through John from his hands to his feet. It was what had pulled John along in Sherlock’s wake from that moment on, what pulled him back to the side of the bed now.

“You look…” he couldn’t finish the sentence, handing the phone to Sherlock and trailing off. Sherlock didn’t look at it, but raised an eyebrow at him, obviously waiting for more. John tried to gather his thoughts. He tried again. “You look… you look like trouble,” he said, and couldn’t help giving him what was most likely an adoring smile. He was completely lost, and he knew it. “But then again I always thought that,” he added. Sherlock tilted his head, his eyes darting all over John’s face, more confident now, assessing. There was a pause as John let him look all he wanted.

“I said ‘danger’,” Sherlock finally said slowly.

“And here I am,” said John. Sherlock’s eyes widened a fraction, and then he smiled.

************************************

They were going home. Sherlock had studied the photos that John had taken, to the point where he could question the plastic surgeon about each injury. The poor man had been reduced to a bit of a stuttering mess as Sherlock had asked his questions and comments in that devastating rapid-fire fashion of his until all his concerns had been addressed. John had felt a bit sorry for the man. Then had come the MRI, and Sherlock had surprised them all again by remaining calm throughout. While a nurse was injecting gadolinium and Sherlock was staring with interest at the needle, Dr. Frida had said,

“You seem to be taking all of this in stride, Sherlock. Anything you want to talk about before the MRI?” Sherlock had sighed, a bit put out, but had then said quite bluntly,

“I wasn’t looking forward to it. But unless you are planning to tie me down and torture me to unconsciousness, I realized it can only be an improvement over the last one.” The nurse had nearly dropped the tourniquet she had just removed at hearing that, and Sherlock had scowled at her. “If you find such comments so disturbing, perhaps consider a change in profession,” he had snapped, and the woman had quickly disappeared while Dr. Frida smothered a laugh.

After the MRI, the dressings on his head had been cleaned and changed along with those on his arm, wrists, ankles and throat. It had taken a long time, and John knew it would take effort to stay on top of it all once they were home. They had also negotiated that all being well, John could take the stitches out at home too. The MRI results had come back clear (again John sensed Mycroft behind the scenes speeding these things up to facilitate a quick departure), and then all that had been left was to collect some medication and say goodbye to Dr. Frida. While Sherlock was across the room putting his ubiquitous coat on over his T-shirt and pyjama trousers, John said to her,

“Thank you. Seriously, this would have been at least ten times harder without you. And… well he might not say it, but he’s grateful to you as well.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” she said, smiling. “He has a soft heart, that one,” she continued in a bit of a knowing tone.

“And a spiky exterior,” said John conspiratorially.

“Well yes,” she agreed, watching Sherlock over his shoulder. “But I think that might have been a necessary evil, in the past.” Her smile had turned a bit bitter-sweet then. “You’ll take care of him?”

“That’s my job,” he had assured her, and he was struck once more by how that for someone who repeatedly professed to have no social skills or friends, Sherlock collected only the most loyal without even realizing he was doing it.

Sherlock had wandered over then, all arrogance in his long coat and straight posture. Aside from the obvious injuries to his face and re-bandaged head, he looked every part the aloof and haughty detective portrayed in all the tabloid newspapers. He had even turned his coat collar up, John had noted with some amusement.

“Well Sherlock,” Frida had said, “it’s been a pleasure. And I have something for you.” She had reached into her pocket and pulled out something dark blue and soft. Confused, Sherlock had taken it and unfolded it – a soft blue beanie hat, to match his blue scarf that was back around his neck. He held the hat in between the index finger and thumb of both hands, rubbing it slightly. When he looked back at her, his face was almost as soft as the fabric. “I know it’s not THE hat,” she had said with a laugh, pulling it back out of his hands and pulling his head down brusquely by pulling gently on his chin, “but it will do for now, I think,” and she had fitted it carefully over the bandages. “What do you think, John?” she had asked.

“Very smart,” he had said, honestly feeling a bit emotional at the kind gesture.

“Isn’t he sweet,” Frida had said about him to Sherlock, and Sherlock had grinned at her and laughed while John felt himself go red. “Go on, off with you both.” she had said, nudging them into the hallway, and off they had gone.

Now they were in a taxi, and almost home. Sherlock was looking happily out of the opposite window, his beloved London greeting them again as she flickered past their view. The blue beanie suited him perfectly, and no-one would have any idea that he was without his hair underneath it. John felt something that had been tense in his chest for days start to loosen as he looked at him: Sherlock was going to be alright.

“Baker Street,” said the driver, and Sherlock turned around and smiled at John like a little kid at Christmas.

“Alright go on,” John mock-grumbled but mouth twitching, digging for his wallet in his pocket. Sherlock did not need telling twice and was out of the taxi and inside the front door before John had even finished paying. He found him upstairs, staring at the incident wall spread out over the wall behind the couch.

John cursed, he had forgotten about it completely. Eric’s face stared out from the periphery along with the faces of his victims.

“I was an idiot,” Sherlock said bluntly.

“Hardly,” said John. “He threw us all off with that fake attack bullshit.” He stood shoulder to shoulder with Sherlock even as Sherlock huffed and shook his head.

“Still, I should have known.”

“Why?” asked John. “Because you’re Sherlock Holmes? Why does that make it your fault?”

“I didn’t say it was my fault,” said Sherlock, irritably. “I said I should have known.”

“Yeah? Well so should I. So should Lestrade. Hell, so should Donovan. We were all there in his interview, you weren’t. So if you want to blame anyone, blame us.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock snapped and moved to the wall, beginning to pull items down.

“I won’t if you won’t,” said John agreeably, joining in. Sherlock didn’t reply, but they made short work of the wall and soon all the photos and papers were in the recycling bin apart from Eric’s, which was still in Sherlock’s hand. John hesitated, not sure what would be best. “You want to keep it?” he asked carefully. Sherlock looked up from his careful perusal of the photo, frowning.

“Hmm? Oh…” He looked down at it again, then opened and closed his mouth quietly.

“What is it?” John asked, drawing closer.

“It’s… Do you think he looked like me?” Sherlock asked, and John had not been expecting that at all.

“What?! No! He looked nothing like you,” he said a bit scandalised.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock pressed. “Isn’t there something in the face…”

“Sherlock, no. Absolutely not,” he said, resolute. John pulled the photo from his hands. “He didn’t look like you, he didn’t speak or act or think like you either. He was… twisted. All twisted up by the world, until all that was left was this …dark thing.” Sherlock stared at him intently. “You were nothing alike,” John said, injecting every ounce of sincerity that he possessed into his voice. “Did he say that you were?”

Sherlock didn’t say anything for a moment, turning away and unbuttoning his coat. He went to hang it up by the door, then carefully took off his new hat and his old scarf to hang them up as well.

“He said… he said a lot of things,” he finally confessed. “Some more plausible than others.”

“Sherlock… nothing this guy could have said was remotely plausible. This was someone who was murdering people and cutting their heads open. He was so far from rational thought, he was approaching it from the other side,” stressed John, and Sherlock smiled a strained smile.

“You’re right. I know you’re right. I just… I think he could have been better, given the chance.”

“Most people could be,” reasoned John, handing the photo back reluctantly. “But you can’t just wait around for chances to come by. You decide who you are, and how you’re going to be. You decided to be a detective. He decided to be a murderer. There’s no comparison. Really, there’s not,” he said, feeling a bit desperate. Sherlock must have noticed, as his face smoothed out.

“OK John. I agree with you. It will all just take some time to process,” he said, giving the photo one last look and then tearing it in half resolutely. He tossed the halves into the bag with the other rubbish.

“I think that’s a bit of an understatement,” said John, relieved. He took off his jacket and went to hang it up.

“I’m going to go and get cleaned up,” said Sherlock, wandering towards the bathroom. “And yes, I’ll be careful of all the dressings. I’ll just have a wipe-down. Can you order some food?”

“Wait, can you say that again? Sherlock Holmes, actually asking for food?” John joked, delighted.

“Hmm yes,” Sherlock said over his shoulder. “Perhaps they were wrong and there is some brain damage after all,” he said with a teasing smile, then disappeared off to the bathroom.

***********************

After a quiet meal of their favourite Thai dishes, Sherlock was laid out on the couch wearing his sleep clothes and blue dressing gown, arranged in his usual ‘thinking’ pose as he had been for a few hours, while John sat at the table with his laptop. He was pretty sure that Sherlock was off in his mind palace, cataloguing everything that had happened. John wasn’t sure how healthy that was, but he also knew he didn’t have a full understanding of it, so he would have to trust that Sherlock knew best how to deal with things in his own way. He still thought that Sherlock was long overdue for a bit of an emotional breakdown – that is at least if he felt at all as bad as John had been feeling for the past few days.

He looked back at the computer. He had a few tabs open on different webpages. True to his word, he was busily reading up about different kinds of relationships that he had never even heard of before. One text to Harry had sent him off in what might be the right direction, but predictably had also led to a slew of messages demanding that he tell her what exactly was going on. He loved his sister, he really did, but she could be very overwhelming at times. He had no doubt she was thrilled at the thought that her brother might finally have something in common with her, but John was not ready to fully open that door yet. Her alcoholism had driven a large wedge between them, and while he thought it was time to reach out and extend an olive branch, it would take time to repair their relationship. He had thanked her for the information then ignored her messages for the next hour, turning his phone on silent, until they stopped.

One of the things she had mentioned was ‘queer platonic relationships’, though the name of it had caused him to have a quiet mini-panic in his head. Because queer meant gay, didn’t it? And he wasn’t gay!

He had almost closed his computer and given up on the whole thing then, because it was honestly a bit frightening. He and Sherlock were friends, close friends, and that was fine, that was good. No need to wade into murkier waters. But then he had looked over at Sherlock, at all the injuries, the sight of which reminded him of how he had almost been taken away, and how John had felt like he had been dying as well. He had remembered how before the attack he had spent an evening researching various things that Sherlock could be diagnosed with, and felt ashamed. As Mycroft had pointed out, he was willing to spend the time and effort looking into how Sherlock thought, so surely he owed it to both of them to put in effort about how they felt.

A bit more research then, and he had calmed down. Queer in this sense it turned out wasn’t about sexuality – it was about ‘queering’ the idea of what a relationship should look like. It was about pushing the boundaries, because those boundaries were pretty much meaningless when you got right down to it. Society had decided what friendships and other relationships ‘should’ be like, but who were people like Sherlock and John to accept convention? You didn’t have to be friends, or boyfriends, or anything else for that matter in the way you had been taught. You could do as you wished and everyone else could just shut up about it.

When he thought of it like that, he kind of liked it. He had conformed his whole life – to what his parents wanted, his teachers, his superior officers in the army. Conformed to the wishes of everyone who kept the world orderly, with everything neatly aligned in its place. Then he had met Sherlock Holmes, who didn’t conform to anything and turned the world upside down and inside out without a second thought – actually without even noticing half the time. John knew which version of the world he preferred.

He had another couple of tabs open from an online community called AVEN that were giving him a bit more pause, as he tried to understand the different terminology and the differences between them. Looking at himself then from an outside perspective, he had to let out a little chuckle. Here he was, seriously contemplating a relationship with the word ‘queer’ in it, learning terms he had never come across before about his romantic inclinations and therefore having a bit of a crisis at the dining table, as the object of his affection was simultaneously off building shelves or filling filing cabinets or whatever it was he did in his imaginary mansion, while laying on the couch and ignoring him. Oh, and they had both almost died a couple days before. Again. The chuckle became a laugh.

“What’s funny?” Sherlock asked, eyes opening and staring at him from the couch. He had all his fingertips pressed together, but relaxed them and laid his hands on his chest while listening to John laugh. He looked perplexed.

“Sorry…” John said, still laughing a little at the ridiculousness of it all. “It’s just… life, you know? You think you’ve got it all sorted out, and then bang, nope. All wrong.” He laughed again. Sherlock sat up, regarding him carefully.

“And… that’s funny?” he asked.

“Well it’s laughable at least,” John said, smiling to show that it was alright. “Did you get everything sorted out in there?” he gestured at Sherlock’s head.

“Hmm, not entirely. But it is in better order than before,” he said, itching at the bandages by his ear but immediately stopping at John’s look. “And you? You’ve been…” for a second his intense ‘deduction face’ appeared though it quickly disappeared and was replaced by surprise. “You’ve been… researching,” he said faintly.

“I did say I was going to,” said John, keeping his voice calm. He had experienced enough of a panic in his own head, no need to add to the situation by letting it bleed out into the real world as well. “It’s kind of important,” he added, with a definite sub-text of, ‘you idiot’.

“Oh,” said Sherlock, still with that sort of stunned tone, like he couldn’t quite believe what his eyes and ears were reporting. “Did… did you want to talk about it?” he asked, as if he were asking if John wanted to jump off a cliff, or climb into a pit of venomous snakes. It was a bit mean of him, but John felt a smidge better knowing that Sherlock might actually be more freaked out than he was.

“Not yet, no,” he said, taking pity on the man. “But I would like to soon. How about tomorrow, over breakfast?” he asked, wanting a definite time to at least start the conversation. Sherlock appeared to debate with himself, and John stayed quiet. After all, there was no point to any of this if Sherlock wasn’t willing. It would be horrible, no doubt about that, but if Sherlock wanted to go back to how things had been, no boundary pushing, then John would just have to find his way through it.

“OK,” Sherlock finally said, fiddling with the sleeve of his robe but looking at John properly. John smiled, he couldn’t help it, and that seemed to bolster Sherlock a bit as he stopped fiddling. “Tomorrow it is,” Sherlock confirmed.

**************************************

After a quiet evening and a light supper, Sherlock had escaped the living room and left John to his research. He had seemed completely enthralled by whatever he was reading, which did nothing to dispel the foreboding Sherlock felt about it. He had crawled into bed, still exhausted, but woke early which was not exactly a surprise. He was a ball of nervous energy, and while he appreciated that John had set a clear time for their ‘talk’, he couldn’t help but wish it were somehow already over with. He was absolutely certain that he was going to mess it up, and a morning visit to the mind palace did nothing to change his view. He had spent some time clearing the snow from the living room and packing documents containing pieces of the Eric Lang case away, stopping every now and then to stare at the majestic tree that was casting its glowing green shadow over everything. His eyes kept being drawn from what he was doing to the skull watching him from the branches, still just visible but seemingly being drawn up higher and further out of his reach each time he visited the room.

When he had woken up, it had first been to stare at his bedroom closet for a while, seeing clearly in his imagination the carved wooden box hidden out of sight on the top shelf. If he could just… use, have a hit, just once, just today, then maybe he could have this conversation that John seemed determined to have and it would be OK. Maybe he could fool John for a while into thinking he were something even remotely approaching normal, someone worth being closer to…

He had rolled over, shoving his face into his pillow, wanting to scream or cry or … something… until he had dragged himself up and away from the room to stare blankly at himself in the bathroom mirror. Dr. Frida had told him that he should bandage his head to protect it at night, but during the day take the bandages off to allow the skin to breathe through the transparent dressings. The previous evening he had only stopped in here long enough to clean his torso with a damp flannel, then exited quickly, avoiding the mirror. Taking a deep breath, he unwound the white gauze bandages and threw them in the bin, then looked up again at his reflection.

Hideous, he thought immediately. Awful. He had been able to contain the thoughts when he was focusing on the wounds, focusing like a scientist, or focusing on John, but now he was alone and had to take in the full picture. The skin was stretched and rippled in odd ways wherever the stitches were, and his general thin physique that extended even to his head meant that every curve and plane of his skull was visible, as if there were no skin there at all. People mentioned his high cheekbones often as if they were something to be proud of, but to Sherlock they just accentuated how closely his face resembled an exposed skull – and they weren’t exactly normal, were they? He had been called a skeleton a few times during his childhood, especially during puberty when he grew tall apparently overnight, limbs stretching and lengthening without giving his muscles time to catch up, and he could see why, now. His hair had been one of the few things he actually liked about his appearance, mainly because of how it softened out all of these strange angles, but now it was gone, and there was nowhere to hide. How was he going to work like this? He had looked so weird already, and now this? Clients weren’t even going to want to talk to him…

Ashamed, he realized that his throat was closing up as his distress rose and he blinked against the wetness threatening to spill over from his eyes. He didn’t want to be like this! Just a few days ago, he had been proud and strong and above it all, and now…

The hall door to the bathroom banged open and John stumbled in, stopping short on seeing him in there.

“Shit, sorry, I… Sherlock?”

Sherlock gasped, putting his hand over his mouth, determined to stop the onslaught of emotion even as he met John’s eyes in the mirror. John immediately became more awake as he took in the state of him. “Hey,” John said, “Hey, what’s the matter?” He stepped closer to Sherlock’s back, and Sherlock gasped beneath his hand, two traitorous tears falling. He brought up his other hand, trying to hold the upset in.

“Oh, love, no,” John said softly. “Don’t do that, it’s OK,” he soothed, and Sherlock closed his eyes, unable to face him even through the reflection. His shoulders hitched with each gasped breath, and he just wanted to melt into the ground and disappear. He hated feeling so emotional, so useless. He was no good like this – no good for anyone or anything at all.

Strong hands at his shoulders pulled him around, and then John’s arms were wrapped around him, John’s head under his wobbling chin, John’s ear pressed to his chest right over his pounding heart. Sherlock resisted for a long moment, pressing his own hands still harder against his own mouth, unwilling to take the comfort that was offered. But John didn’t let go, instead he started stroking his back as he had in the hospital, and after a minute of that Sherlock didn’t have any strength left. He gripped John hard under his arms around to his shoulders, grabbing a fistful of his T-shirt in both hands and burying his face in his hair. His hitching breaths became even more pronounced, and thick tears just continued to fall.

“There you are, it’s alright,” John murmured against his chest. “You’re alright, now,” he said, and he continued to rub Sherlock’s back calmly, apparently in no rush to be anywhere else. Sherlock cringed at the sounds he was making into John’s hair, little keening cries of anguish, but it seemed there was no way to make them stop. What was John going to think of him after this? They were supposed to have a mature, calm discussion over breakfast, and Sherlock hadn’t even been able to keep it together to get as far as the kitchen table. He fought a bit harder with his breathing, resolutely squashing down the little sounds. He gasped for air a few more times, then started to loosen his hold on John’s shirt, preparing to school his features as he had so many times before, but no idea of how he was actually going to do it now.

“Stop that,” John suddenly snapped, and there was a hint of anger in it. Sherlock let go of him completely, raising a hand to cover his face, the other blindly pushing against John’s chest, tried to step away, shame pulsing in hot waves over his skin. But John didn’t let go. “No, Sherlock, I mean stop that – stop trying to control yourself. Stop trying to fake being OK. It didn’t work in the hospital and it’s not going to work now.” The arms around Sherlock squeezed fiercely for a moment, then one arm let go. A hand pulled his own from Sherlock’s eyes, and he felt vulnerable and exposed as he looked down into John’s stern face. “You’re hurting yourself, Sherlock,” he said with a quiet intensity that gave Sherlock pause. “And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Sherlock sniffed, still hugely upset and embarrassed, but he remembered John saying the same thing that night in the hospital. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt… I want you to be happy,’ this simple, paradigm-shifting statement, apparently said so easily. He tried to nod, causing a whole-body tremble, and John immediately wrapped both arms around him again. Sherlock let his face fall back into John’s hair, but breathing wasn’t coming any easier and he was becoming frightened by the strength of the onslaught.

“That’s better,” John said approvingly, rubbing again at his back. Sherlock sighed and turned his head to the side, cheek against John’s hair, the golden smell of it rising up and around his head, and finally he was better able to control his breathing. The smell said things about growing, and bending, but not breaking. The scent rose in unending coils, helping him to genuinely calm down both inside and out. As the tears slowed and finally came to a halt, he felt absolutely exhausted.

John just held him quietly a little longer, until there were no more hitching breaths. Then he said into his chest, “I’d ask you if you slept well, but I think even I can deduce the answer to that.” Sherlock didn’t laugh, he couldn’t, but he appreciated the attempt. He hummed tiredly, lifting his head and dropping his hands. One more rub down his back, and John let go and stepped back as well, smiling up at him. “Back to bed with you, I think?” John said, and Sherlock nodded mutely, eyes on his feet. “OK you go and get settled, just got to use the loo. Put this on your pillow,” he said, pushing a clean towel into Sherlock’s hands. He nudged him back towards his bed and closed the bathroom door.

Sherlock stood, apparently completely out of thoughts, just staring down at the towel, until he heard the toilet flush. He walked numbly back to the bed and put the towel down over the pillow, because that’s what John had said he should do. He heard the door open again and sat down on the bed, wincing when John’s feet appeared in front of him.

“You’re that happy to see me, eh?” John said, still in a light jokey tone. Sherlock shrugged. He had absolutely no idea what to say or how to act, and he was So. Very. Tired. After a moment, the feet in front of him disappeared. He heard John walk around to the other side of the bed, and then felt it dip. Despite himself, Sherlock looked over his right shoulder and found John’s feet again – on the bed. He looked over his left shoulder, confused: John was laying on his bed?

“Hi,” John said calmly, then patted the pillow next to him, giving Sherlock that look that said, ‘you are being slow but I’ll humor you.’ Sherlock looked from the pillow to John’s face, but he couldn’t actually think of a reason why not, so he swung himself around and lay out on the bed next to him. He was flat on his back and stared at the ceiling, wondered in a vague sort of way what John might do next, but couldn’t summon the energy to try and predict it.

“Want to tell me what that was about?” John asked from somewhere on his right. “Not that there aren’t plenty of things to choose from…” Sherlock couldn’t make out the tone, so he turned a little to look at John’s face. It was concerned, but with an honest curiosity as well. Sherlock scanned John’s body position: rolled on his side, facing Sherlock, lower hand under his face to support it on the pillow, upper arm resting on his hip. Open, communicative, at rest. Sherlock turned his body around fully and mimicked what he saw, aside from John’s fond smile when he realized what Sherlock was doing. He couldn’t get his face to move like that just now.

“Hi,” John said again once he was done. Sherlock swallowed.

“Hi,” he tried, and John’s face brightened.

“Thought I might be getting the silent treatment again,” he said, coaxing. Sherlock frowned.

“That’s not… that’s not what I meant to do,” he said.

“You mean when you go completely silent and refuse to speak to anyone?” John said archly.

“Yes… I mean… no. No, that’s not… it’s nothing to do with you,” Sherlock said, frustrated. John’s eyes narrowed a bit at that and Sherlock held his breath. However there was no outburst, no argument. John merely looked him over for a moment, and then his eyes relaxed and the apparent annoyance disappeared.

“OK. So it’s something to do with you?” John asked. Sherlock nodded, relieved. “Can you explain it to me?” John asked.

Explain it?

“I… sometimes it’s… there’s nothing to say,” he tried slowly. John nodded in encouragement and he tried to say more. “I just… I know what I’ll say will be wrong. Or no one will understand. It gets… it’s a tangle. It's wrong. So… the words are gone.” He stared at John, waiting for the confused face, but it didn’t come. John smiled instead.

“I see. Makes sense,” he said easily. “When I first moved in, you told me you don’t speak for days on end. That’s never happened, at least not since then?” Sherlock blinked at him, trying to find the right words.

“No, it… it hasn’t happened. It used to, a lot. I couldn’t find words. For cases, yes. Everything is there already. I just say what’s there. I mean… for me, anyway. People get angry, but it’s all right there in front of them,” he said, confusion evident in his voice. But he wanted John, someone, to understand and John apparently wanted to hear it. “But the other times…”

“The other times it’s not right there,” John said, nodding.

“Right. And… and it should be, I think. It is, for other people. It’s like they can all see the words, but I can’t… So I would just not talk, for days on end. There was no point.”

“So what changed?” John asked.

“Well… you’re here,” Sherlock said, feeling ridiculous. “And you… you try to understand. Even when what I say is wrong.” He fixed his eyes on the hand under John’s head rather than his face, and found the courage to keep going. “You still don’t always hear me… what I’m trying to say… but it’s more than other people.” He stopped then, the words running out again.

“So…” said John thoughtfully, “Are you saying that I speak ‘Sherlock’?” a little lilt to his voice. Sherlock risked a quick look at him, and John’s smile was still there, his eyes soft. Sherlock looked away again, but nodded slowly. “Well that’s a good coincidence, because you are definitely the only one who speaks, ‘John’.”

“I… what?” he asked, looking John in the face again. That couldn’t be right?

“Yeah. You know when I’m worried, or annoyed, or happy, or anything really, way before anyone else does. You read me like an open book. An easy open book,” John explained, and then Sherlock felt something nudge his calf. He glanced down – John had tapped his foot against Sherlock’s leg. He looked back up quickly, but John was still smiling easily, no hint of anything untoward, or any expectations.

“You’re not easy to read,” Sherlock said, and John made a, ‘hmph’ sound of disbelief. “Well… OK maybe sometimes,” Sherlock corrected, realising that he was doing it now. He was reading John, and he was right, it was easy… other times though… But he didn’t want to argue.

“Right,” John said, rolling his eyes a little and settling further into the bed. “Well, just in case this is one of those times when you can, have a go at reading me now.” He went quiet then, waiting.

Sherlock paused, but the background hum of deductions was only ever tenuously held at bay, and at the first opportunity it all came buzzing back. They floated around John’s head, just waiting to be acknowledged.

John was tired – it was there in the lines around his eyes, there in the clothes he had chosen to sleep in. He was feeling battered, not just physically due to the bruising on his chin, but mentally as well. He was trying to understand things he worried might be too much, too difficult, for him to fully grasp. But there was something so… hopeful… there as well. He was relaxed in Sherlock’s bed. There was no deception or artifice in any of his features. His pulse, beating steadily in his throat, was calm and sure. He was exactly where he wanted to be, and was with exactly who he wanted to be with.

Sherlock inhaled sharply and tore his eyes away.

“Idiot,” John said softly.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, because he was right.

“So, the bathroom? What was all that about?” John asked again.

“It’s stupid,” said Sherlock, embarrassed all over again. He wiped a hand over his face, feeling the grit of the salt.

“Hey, I say and do stupid stuff all the time,” said John. “Tell me anyway.”

“It’s just… I saw in the mirror and I look…”

“Bald?” suggested John. “Tired? Like you got hit by a train?”

“Weird!” Sherlock snapped. “I look… bizarre! Like… I don’t even know what. Something not normal.”

“Well you aren’t normal,” said John reasonably, and Sherlock sucked in a sharp, hurt breath. “Hey,” John continued, reaching out and grabbing Sherlock’s left hand with his right. He dropped them both onto the mattress between them, holding on tight. “That’s not the same as saying you’re weird. Or at least, that’s not how I mean it. ‘Normal’ is the bad word here, Sherlock. Normal is repressed, caged, it’s being bored to the point of numb. It’s conforming to something that doesn’t exist. And that’s not you, Sherlock, and I hope to god it’s not me either.” Sherlock blinked a few times, wondered where all of this was coming from.

“Doesn’t sound like you,” he offered eventually, and John squeezed his hand.

“Thanks,” he said, chuckling. “So, you don’t look normal at the moment. So what? And I know I’m being a bit of a twat right now, because if I’d been forced to cut off my hair by some complete lunatic I would be handling it WAY worse than you are.” Sherlock smiled a little at that. “But even so,” John continued, “so what? I don’t think you look weird, or bizarre. I think you look like someone who had a really shitty couple of days and is doing his best to get through it.”

Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to see it that way. It didn’t exactly work – he still thought John was missing the point that he looked strange even before all of this – but John was definitely being sincere… so at least that was one person not put off by his current appearance. John squeezed his hand again and Sherlock opened his eyes.

“What if my hair doesn’t grow back?” he asked quietly. “Or… it’s white, or something?”

“That’s not a real thing,” said John stoutly. “Literature would have you believe so, but it’s not.”

“If you lose hair from stress, from alopecia, melanin production can be stopped and it grows back white,” Sherlock argued.

“Hah! So someone else has been researching, hmm?” said John, but he still didn’t seem to be agreeing. “OK sure, you’re right. Of course you are. But your hair didn’t fall out, Sherlock. You were forced to cut it off. There’s a big difference, which can probably be measured in all the years of therapy you will no doubt refuse to have.” Sherlock grimaced in agreement at that. It was almost impossible to talk to John about this, and he practically lived inside Sherlock’s head. No one else was going to have a clue.

John moved his hand in such a way that caused their fingers to lace together, catching Sherlock’s attention again.

“It’s going to grow back, love,” said John fondly. “Maybe even messier and more mad than before, and it’ll be great.”

Sherlock swallowed hard against the tangle threatening to mute him once again.

“That’s… you… it’s the second time,” he tried, heart starting to race. John frowned.

“I missed something… what’s the second time?” he asked encouragingly.

“You…” Sherlock grew a little exasperated with himself, and huffed. John was trying so hard, and had put up with so much, not just today but every day. Say something! “You called me ‘love’,” he forced out, then gasped like he’d just dropped a heavy weight.

“Did I?” said John, surprised but not upset. Sherlock’s heart rate dropped a tad. John looked to be thinking it over, then nodded to himself. “I guess I did, yes,” he confirmed, pulling their hands further up the bed. Sherlock sighed, glad he at least had not imagined it. “Must be because I love you,” John mused absently, pulling Sherlock’s hand up even further and brushing his lips against his fingers.

Sherlock was pretty sure his heart stopped completely at that soft brush of skin.

“Sorry,” John said, flushing. He loosened his hold on Sherlock’s hand, but Sherlock didn’t have the presence of mind to do anything with it. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he went on, beginning to look mortified. “I… sorry, I…”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock said, hating the look on John’s face, the uncertainty in his tone. He gripped John’s lax hand securely.

“You always say that,” John complained, watching him carefully.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. “And I don’t always mean it. But I do now.” And he did. John stared at him closely, and Sherlock realised that this look, this thoughtful examination, this was John deducing. This was John, reading him, seeing him. So he smiled, and squeezed the hand again, because he knew how awful it was to be lost and uncertain without any kind of clue. It was John who kept him right, and he needed to reciprocate. John saw the smile, felt the squeeze, and he relaxed again.

“OK. Ugh. You know, I’m not sure my old heart can take much more of this,” he confessed, and though the tone was jokey Sherlock again heard the request for reassurance.

“You aren’t old. You know I hate repeating myself,” he said, injecting something stern into his voice.

“No, I know. But I might be… I don’t know. Set in my ways? A bit rubbish at trying something new?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sherlock said, incredulous. “Set in your ways? You’re not sitting in front of the TV in your slippers every day, John. You just fought and killed a man two days ago!”

“Well one could actually argue that for me, those are the ways I’m set in,” John said, but his smile grew back properly again. “I get what you’re saying though.” Sherlock smiled back, relieved. “So,” John said, “before I make a right mess of things, that was OK?” He raised their joined hands from the bed slightly, and Sherlock caught on that he was referencing the kiss.

“Oh. Well… yes. Definitely OK,” he agreed, something like shyness creeping up the back of his neck.

“That’s good,” John said, grinning happily. “I’ll make sure to do it often,” he added, and Sherlock had a sudden fear that he was still asleep because there was just no way that any of this was real. “And you like hugs?” John continued, bringing Sherlock back to the here-and-now.

“In general, no,” Sherlock said, but quickly added, “but from you, absolutely.” John smiled again, but it was a little more thoughtful.

“Well yeah, we’re only talking about things between us. I’m not about to go hugging anyone else the way I hug you,” John said. “And I’m definitely not kissing anyone else’s hand,” he said, face twisting.

Sherlock gaped at him.

“You… but…”

“But what?” said John, eyes wide but still somehow calm. “You thought… you thought I was going to be going off and kissing other people?”

“Well… you like kissing!” Sherlock spluttered. “And other things!”

“Other things…” John repeated, leading.

“Yes! You know… like, sex,” Sherlock said, the blush climbing up his neck and into his face. “You’re always looking for some woman to have sex with!” That had come out a bit blunter than he intended, but John didn’t look upset.

“I did used to spend some time doing that, yes,” he agreed, tone even, “But I’m not going to, now.”

“But…” Sherlock could not believe his ears. Something in this conversation was definitely getting scrambled somewhere. John sighed, hand tightening in his.

“Look, yes, once upon a time I was a young man who honestly thought he was going to live forever. I had loads of one night stands, loads of meaningless sex, I slept with women whose names I didn’t even know. The lads called me, ‘three continents Watson,’ because of this fucking stupid bet we had that I won by sleeping with women from around the world. It was a bit sick, actually. I wish… anyway. But then… Christ, Sherlock. I got shot. Friends got killed. I moved back to London, and I was so alone, after everything. I had been the life of the party, but it had all meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Sherlock frowned, because now John’s eyes weren’t here, they were far away. “I was living in this little dark room, Sherlock, with no one to call, no one to meet. I was living there all alone, with my crutch and my gun. And to be completely honest with you… I wasn’t planning on living there much longer.” John’s voice trailed off into silence, eyes still firmly locked on something Sherlock couldn’t see. The bleak lonely end that John had planned was all there in his tone, his face, the lines of stress around his mouth. No!

Sherlock took a deep breath, then slid his free hand out from beneath his cheek, and pushed it underneath John’s torso. He freed his other hand, and John made a startled sound as he came back to himself. Sherlock didn’t stop, heart thumping at his own bravery. He pulled John towards him, top arm curling around his waist, lower arm around his back, and held his breath. John sighed then, a sound that was somehow both sad and happy simultaneously, and Sherlock felt him place both hands up against Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock rubbed one hand experimentally up and down John’s back softly, and John made the little sighing sound again.

“You’re really amazing,” John murmured, and though Sherlock didn’t really understand why, he believed he meant it.

“So are you,” he said softly, nudging his chin against John’s forehead. John hummed, a clearer, content and happy sound that Sherlock could have listened to all day.

“So,” John said, and his breath puffed against Sherlock’s collar bone. “I really need this to be clear, Sherlock. I’m not going to go looking for anything else, with anyone else, OK? Even if you wanted me to do that… I couldn’t. I just… no.” He sounded a bit distressed which was the last thing Sherlock wanted, so he rubbed his back up and down again.

“OK,” Sherlock agreed, though he still could barely believe it. “It probably goes without saying, but I couldn’t either,” he added.

“I don’t think anything should go without saying in our case,” John said ruefully. “So let me tell you what I want, OK? I want to be close to you, like this.” He rubbed both hands gently against Sherlock’s chest for a moment, and Sherlock thought he might just die from sentiment right there on the bed. But John wasn’t done. “I want to cuddle up with you on the sofa and make you watch Disney films, and Die Hard, and detective stories that you’ll pick to pieces until we end up having a massive argument. I want to take care of you and make you eat more.” John kept going but his voice got a bit quieter. His face was firmly hidden, out of Sherlock’s view. “I want to hug you whenever it seems right, hold your hand, kiss it sometimes. I think one day I want to kiss you on the lips, too, but only if you want that. I want you to be my… my person. I want to be yours. And I want you to be happy, and to feel safe, and to know I’ll never ask for more than you want to give me. Not ever.” His voice raised with a kind of desperate fierceness at the end, and Sherlock couldn’t help but squeeze his arms a little tighter around him. This just… could not be his life. There was just no way. ‘You thought it was impossible…’ he remembered someone saying to him, but he couldn’t remember from where.

Could… could this actually be real?

“Sherlock?” asked John, voice worried. “Was that… was it too much?”

“No!” Sherlock said quickly. “No no. It was… unbelievable,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say aside from the truth. John stirred in his arms, uneasy.

“You don’t believe me?” he asked softly. Sherlock cursed himself and his inability to be clear in difficult situations.

“I believe you,” he said clearly, rubbing a hand against John’s back again and feeling him relax a little. “I just…”

“What?” said John, and he pushed back against Sherlock’s chest until he could look up into his face again. He looked embarrassed, but resolute.

“You are the bravest person I know,” said Sherlock, the thought coming out of his mouth with absolutely no reference at all to his brain. He was blown away by the way John was just laying everything out there, how he felt and what he wanted. It was just astonishing. John looked pleased, but confused.

“I… OK? Thank you?” he said. Sherlock realized he had somehow skipped a part of the conversation, and dragged his thoughts away from John’s shining face and the heady smell of the summer leaves and tried to get back on track. He tried again.

“I don’t understand,” he said slowly, and John looked more confused. “Not about what you said,” he added. “That was all clear, and… well, wonderful. But I don’t understand why you want it.” John still looked lost. He tried again. “I don’t see why you would want to be in a relationship like that, with me. You don’t get anything out of it.” John’s eyes grew very, very wide at that, and Sherlock scanned over what he had said, searching for the mistake.

“You… you think I won’t get anything out of it,” John said faintly. He glanced around at Sherlock’s arms, his feet tapped against his calves, as if he suddenly wasn’t one hundred percent sure where he was and needed to check in with reality.

“Well… yes,” Sherlock said slowly. It seemed obvious to him. “I want those things you said too. I want you to be my… my person. Just like you said. But I don’t feel things like that. I don’t do things like that,” he reasoned, trying to get John to see. John was staring up at him like he was speaking a foreign language - he licked his lips and looked like he was going to respond a couple of times, eyes still wide, but apparently just didn’t know where to start. Sherlock frowned, because he needed to get John to understand, no matter what the outcome.

“I’m not… I’m not normal, John. And I know you know that already,” he said quickly before John could interrupt. “But… it matters. You’ll get hurt. I’m not going to be able to do the things that you need. I want to hug you and dance with you and sleep next to you and maybe even one day kiss you as well, but… well, I’m never going to want to do more than that. I’m never going to want to have sex with you,” he forced himself to say, because John obviously did not understand that part, and he had to. “I’ve never wanted to do that. Never ever, not with anyone. I don’t understand why anyone would want to,” he said, unsure of what else he could say, or if he had been blunt and clear enough. John’s wide eyes were narrowing now, so it seemed it was starting to get through. “I told you – you’re not gay, and I’m not anything. Really, John. I’m… I’m nothing.”

There was a ringing silence. Sherlock stared down at John, feeling distraught, knowing that John was about to wriggle his way free and stomp out of the bedroom, furious to be led on in such a manner. But he had to be honest, about this. John deserved it.

John glared up at him, for a few seconds apparently too angry to move, or even say anything.

“You…” he finally began, then stopped, grinding his teeth. His hands flexed in the front of Sherlock’s T-shirt. “You,” he said it again, and he seemed to want to convey a lot with that one word. He still wasn’t leaving though, and Sherlock waited tensely for when he would. Here, John, he wanted to say. Here is one of those times, when I can’t read you at all. With some sort of great internal effort, John managed to un-clench his jaw, and let out a long suffering sigh.

“You,” he said for the third time, stony-faced, “are a total and utter idiot. I… I seriously just… sometimes I just can’t believe that one person can be so amazingly clever, but so absolutely bloody stupid,” he went on, and it seemed for a moment he wasn’t even talking to Sherlock but to himself. Sherlock was taken aback.

“It’s not stupid,” he insisted. John huffed, still pissed off.

“Alright,” he said. “It’s not stupid. You’re right. I just thought it didn’t need to be said so clearly. Maybe that’s my fault. But Sherlock, when I told you what I want from you, from us, where did you hear the part about us having sex?” he asked, obviously exasperated. Sherlock stared at him. “Come on,” John said, kicking him forcefully in the shins with his toes. “Think back, and tell me where I said I want to have sex with you. I mean it, Sherlock, I want you to think about it, right now.” His voice was getting louder.

“I… I know you didn’t say that,” Sherlock said quietly, heart in his throat, thoughts starting to race.

“Good!” said John, voice rising further. “I’m glad you know I didn’t say it, because I didn’t. I don’t!” he shouted.

“OK,” Sherlock whispered, needing this to stop, starting to withdraw his hands, John’s ire twisting in his gut. This was it, then. John was definitely leaving now.

“Christ,” John sighed, with gusto. Sherlock pulled his arms fully away from him at that, ice running through veins that had so recently been singing with summer breezes. He shivered, suddenly cold. John rubbed a hand over his face, apparently too angry to even look at him, and Sherlock started to get up, though he might just fall down onto the carpet if he tried standing. Got to get away, now, he thought frantically. There, it’s done, it’s all wrong. Just like you knew it would be. Just like it always is.

Go!

He sat up on the bed, disorientated, feet on the floor, but then there was a strong vice-like grip around his forearm. The shivering became a more pronounced tremble, his feet and hands like ice, and he blinked through blurry vision at John’s hand inexplicably holding him in place. Was there snow on the floor? Flakes of it seemed to be brushing against his cheeks…

“Wait,” said John, and his voice was not angry anymore, it was worried. “Wait, love. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. Sherlock? Sherlock, I’m sorry,” he said, voice speeding up. The hand locked around Sherlock’s arm was the only source of heat in the room, and all Sherlock could see was snow. The hand let go, and Sherlock thought he might just blow away completely in the snowstorm, but then there was a band of heat and light wrapped around his chest, the strong tree trunk at his back, and a voice talking urgently into his ear. “I’m not angry anymore. I’m an idiot. Are you listening? You’ve gone all cold… I’m sorry. I just… the sex stuff, it scares me too. I tried to avoid talking about it, and I messed it all up didn’t I? But you don’t have to go away. Please don’t go away…” The voice sounded very upset. “I just… I need you to understand, but I don’t think you do, Sherlock. Maybe you can’t… You wanted to know what I would get from this? If we had a relationship? I don’t want sex, I don’t want normal, I don’t want solid and neutral and safe and boring. I just want you, Sherlock. I just want you.”

The bark behind Sherlock’s back was thumping with the movement of the sap… or … no, that was a heartbeat. And the branches holding him up, keeping him safe… those… it was John. John, who was kneeling on the bed behind him, arms wrapped around him, distraught because Sherlock was frozen all over and not responding. John who was saying… what was he saying? Sherlock blinked with some difficulty, and raised a hand that felt like a dead weight to put over one of John’s.

“Oh thank fuck,” John said vehemently, and the fire of it leeched away some more of the cold. “Don’t DO that, love,” he croaked, clinging on tighter.

“’m sorry,” Sherlock said through numb lips.

“You don’t have to be,” said John, crowding closer until he was pressed firmly against Sherlock’s back. “Or… OK, maybe you do. But you didn’t do it on purpose,” he mumbled, still distraught. Sherlock gripped the hand in his weakly. His brain was powering back up, and he was disheartened by his strong overreaction to the fraught conversation.

“You didn’t either,” he whispered, ashamed. “Do it on purpose, I mean.” John just breathed against the back of his neck and somehow pressed himself even closer.

“We are… really, really bad at this part,” he said finally, slowly letting go of his grip around Sherlock’s chest, transferring his hands to Sherlock’s shoulders and giving a hesitant rub.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, at a loss. His thoughts had completely ground to a halt again. Why did this have to be so difficult?

“Hey,” John said uncertainly, and Sherlock couldn’t help but turn around. John looked worn out, and guilt gnawed at Sherlock’s ribs for putting him through all of this as he dropped his eyes down to John’s knees. There was a pressure under his chin as John nudged his head up, and Sherlock stared into tired eyes that were blue as a cloudless sky. “It’s me,” John said softly. “It’s me and you. And we do this sometimes. We have fights. We speak each other’s language better than other people, but sometimes we don’t listen properly. I know that I don’t. And it’s OK... At least I hope so. We’re OK. You don’t have to go away,” he repeated, stress evident in his voice. Sherlock nodded, but he didn’t know how to clearly explain that sometimes when he went away, it wasn’t under his control. He was just… gone. Like the words. John pulled him further around by the shoulders and Sherlock let him, until they were both sitting and facing each other.

“So,” John said, obviously trying hard to bring something light back in to the room. “That was, after all, an extremely dramatic way of us actually agreeing with each other.” He rubbed his hands on his knees, and Sherlock frowned. He thought back on the stressful conversation, veering sharply away when he felt a brush of ice, and found… John was right. They… they agreed? John must have seen the realization in his face, as a little smile started to creep back. “Yeah. We both want the same things, turns out,” he said, and Sherlock was once again all bemusement. John’s smile grew, observing his face. “Apart from dancing,” he went on. “Not sure about dancing. Unless… you could teach me?” he offered.

“You want… you want me to… teach you how to dance?” Sherlock clarified slowly, still unsure what exactly was going on and fighting against the closing of his eyes. He was going to need to go back to the mind palace later, because there had been several earthquakes in there over the course of the morning. John nodded, then moved to get off and stand by the bed. “Now?!” questioned Sherlock, voice accidentally loud.

“No, not now you berk,” said John, smiling wider. “But soon. Now you are going to go back to sleep because you look like you’re going to pass out, and I’m going to start typing up the case. Then in an hour, I’ll come and get you and we can go to Speedy’s for breakfast. Sound OK?”

“Speedy’s?” said Sherlock. His eyelids were starting to droop of their own accord and he was not keeping up with what was happening. “But… breakfast… you did research,” he argued, letting John push him over into a reclining position and felt him pull the blanket up and over feeling a bit warmer. “You wanted to have a big talk,” he said. John laughed quietly, and Sherlock was so, so relieved to hear it.

“We just had it, you ridiculous man,” said John from somewhere above him. Sherlock frowned even as he started to fall asleep, but stopped when something soft brushed against his furrowed brow, melting the last of the ice, letting him drift away.

*********************************

John spent the next few days treading very carefully, and engaging in a good deal of berating himself. Though the outcome of their loaded conversation had been good – more than good, amazing! – he still couldn’t help but replay all of the parts of it where he had gone wrong. He had just been so keen to get on with things, get on with their lives, that he had pushed Sherlock too hard. Sherlock, who was just back from the hospital after being tortured! And what did you do, John? You waited until he was a crying mess, got in his bed, and shouted at him for being honest. Well done.

And then there had been the disassociation… Was that what that was? Sherlock had gone from animated and talking to still and absent in the blink of an eye. ‘Sometimes there’s nothing to say…’ he had told John, halting, hesitant words to try and explain a horrible truth – people expected the worst of rude, strange, blunt Sherlock Holmes, so they didn’t listen to what he actually said. And John hadn’t either, so he had stopped talking. Again.

So, he helped Sherlock change his wound dressings. He patted him on the shoulder, then withdrew. He ordered their food, served portions to Sherlock in his chair, he surrendered his laptop. He didn’t push for conversation. He slunk off to his bed early, Sherlock’s eyes on him. And on the whole, he kept his mouth shut.

He would have gone on like that for who-knows-how-long, but on the fourth day when he returned from the front door with their food delivery, he found Sherlock not curled up in his chair as usual, but on the couch. He was glaring at the TV and flicking through the channels by jabbing the remote as if it had personally offended him. John paused but then retreated to the kitchen to serve their food – if Sherlock wanted to watch TV for once, he wasn’t going to mention it. In fact if Sherlock wanted to take up taxidermy and fill the flat with more dead animals than previously, he wasn’t going to mention that either.

He put a little bit of everything onto to two plates, grabbed the cutlery and turned around, then nearly dropped the lot because Sherlock was standing right behind him. The TV was blaring in the background.

“Whoah. You scared me,” he said, holding the plates more securely. Sherlock frowned, eyes narrowed. He was already looking better – the bruising had faded, the skin was repairing itself. There was even the shadow of dark hair spreading in large patches all over his head. John had noticed him scratching at it occasionally, but hadn’t said anything.

Sherlock grasped both plates and tugged them out of John’s hands, turning abruptly away with a whirl of blue silk. He walked back to the couch, stepping up and over the coffee table and back down, then turned and positively glared at John. John froze on the threshold between the kitchen and living room.

“Sherlock… what…”

Sherlock sat down and very pointedly put both plates onto the coffee table with a ‘thunk’. Curry sauce spilled over his thumb, but he carried on glaring at John, who flushed.

“Oh.” John breathed, feeling very stupid. He walked slowly over, moving around the short table and hovered over the other couch cushion while Sherlock continued to glare at him. Then Sherlock snorted irritably and turned back towards the TV, sucking the curry sauce off his thumb and apparently ignoring John. John sat down.

“Detective stories,” Sherlock said suddenly after finding the channel he wanted. It was one of David Suchet’s versions of Poirot – not at all the kind of thing Sherlock liked to spend his time on.

“Wait, it’s OK you can watch something else,” John said, feeling miserable. Sherlock shot him a very irritated look.

“You’re right,” he snapped. “I can. I could watch you tiptoe around this flat as if I’m going to drop dead any moment, drive yourself to distraction feeling guilty, and avoid coming anywhere near me. But I’ve been watching that for days now, and here’s my review: it’s dull.” He turned away again and picked up his plate and fork with more force than necessary. John stared at the back of his head, a little light starting to glow somewhere inside.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. The taught shoulders in front of him relaxed marginally.

“I know you are, John. But I’m tired of watching it from across the room.” Sherlock sighed and turned back to look at him properly. “So can we just… get on with it, now? I didn’t fight my way through mental torture and have around twenty-seven emotional crises just so we could share the rent. Do you understand?” John nodded, throat tight, hearing more in that last question that just the obvious. Yes, he did understand. He had a few bites of food while Sherlock fiddled with the volume control.

“Just… just twenty-seven?” he asked, taking a risk.

Sherlock bristled, but with a dissatisfied ‘humph’ at the TV, he unceremoniously grabbed a cushion, rammed it against John’s side, and leant up against it and him, as if he had done it a hundred times before. If his hair had grown back, John would have had a face full of it.

“You’re one to talk,” Sherlock said grumpily, then ate a forkful of rice. “If I had to watch you skulk around here like a guilty school kid for one more day, I was going to have Lestrade take you out on a case just so you could hit something.” The knot in John’s throat tightened inexplicably at that, and he forced down another couple of bites, coughing slightly. Sherlock glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

“It’s all fine, John,” he said, the annoyed lines around his eyes smoothing out.

And it was.

*************************

Between the two of them, they managed to have their supermarket shopping delivered, reassure Mrs. Hudson that they were alright, get a heavily edited version of events up on the blog, and take Sherlock’s stitches out. They had been home for two weeks, and the hair on Sherlock’s head felt like soft black velvet. John knew that, because he rubbed a hand over it every chance he got. Sherlock had switched up his ‘thinking’ pose so that his head was usually on a cushion on John’s lap, “because you’re warm and that’s good for brain work,” but John was pretty sure that the gentle strokes he doled out over Sherlock’s healing scalp might have had something to do with it. Greg had stopped by a couple of times, and if he noticed anything different between them, he didn’t mention it. No one brought up casework, as it seemed an unspoken agreement that Sherlock and John were on some kind of holiday. Then one day in the third week, they had a different visitor.

John opened the door and stared at Sally Donovan. Her appearance there was all wrong – he would have felt exactly the same to open the door and find David Suchet waiting there.

“Uh… hello?” he said, and she frowned at him.

“Yeah, hi. Look, can I come in?” she asked, flicking her head in that way she had that reminded John of an agitated horse.

“Donovan?” said Sherlock a bit incredulously from behind John. He stepped out of the way, and she brushed past him to stand hovering in the middle of the living room. Sherlock was sat on the couch, legs folded under him. Donovan looked around at the general chaos of their living room, then grabbed the client chair and sat down, legs crossed.

“Right,” she said brusquely. Sherlock frowned and looked at John for guidance. John realized he was still standing and holding the door open, so he quickly closed it and went to sit next to Sherlock.

“Is this… is this a social call?” asked John, making sure she could hear how ludicrous that idea seemed to him. She gripped her hands around her knee, lips pursed.

“Look, just… yeah. I guess. I wanted to see how you’re doing,” she said to Sherlock, obviously uncomfortable but blustering her way through it. John folded his arms, unimpressed.

“… why?” asked Sherlock, drawing out the sound. She gripped her knee even tighter.

“Because… Alright. I've said some things to you recently. About who you are, what you're like. And I'm not sorry.” She raised her chin in a challenge.

“Interesting beginning,” Sherlock said faintly. John was getting annoyed. If she thought she was going to come in here and… but Donovan kept going.

“I'm not sorry, because all I ever see of you is this arrogant, jumped up, posh prick who is rude to me and mine, and gets away with things I'd get fired for,” she snapped. “You don't have any idea what it's like, being a full time police officer. The hours and the sacrifices and the stuff we see every day.” John made to interrupt, but Sherlock put a placating hand on his arm. Donovan stopped for a second, staring at Sherlock’s hand in surprise, but rallied.

“So… I stewed about that for a while… and then I saw you in that chair, in that lab. And I remembered what Lestrade said, how all of Lang’s victims had been bullied and called names for being different. And I was sympathetic to them, it was easy to be. And it really pissed me off to see you in that chair, because then I had to be sympathetic to you, and I really didn't want to, because then it wasn’t easy.”

She stopped again, waiting for a reaction, but Sherlock was quiet next to John. Donovan flicked her hair again, and went on. “So I'm not sorry for what I said… because you didn't know what it was like to be me. But I'm not going to say stuff like that anymore, because…” she paused and eyed Sherlock’s hand on John’s arm again, “… I don't know what it's like to be you. If the past couple weeks are anything to go by, it actually looks a bit shit, to be honest.”

“It has its ups and downs,” Sherlock said, and perhaps John was imagining it, but there was something warmer in the tone than previously. “Does this mean you expect a change in my behavior?” Sherlock asked her.

“I'm not stupid enough to ask for that,” she said, faced scrunching. “How you treat people is your business. I can only change what I do.”

“Very wise,” Sherlock said solemnly, and Donovan nodded and stood quickly back up again. Thrown, John jumped up as well to show her back to the door. As she was leaving, Sherlock spoke again, still on the couch. “Would you believe me… if I said that I do try? If I told you that what you see is me trying, already?”

John was internally amazed that Sherlock had decided to be so open, and with this woman in particular. There was a pause, Donovan apparently considering the question carefully. She looked around the room – at the mess, at the skull, at John.

“Yeah,” she said eventually. “I could see that… Still, you're the great Sherlock Holmes right? Lestrade always tells us not to underestimate you.” Sherlock blinked, confused.

“So…?” he asked slowly.

“So, it’s been three weeks, and from what I hear, you’ve barely left this flat. Yeah, I believe you, that you try. I’ll make sure to appreciate it a bit more, even when you’re being a total dick,” she said flatly. “But it’s probably time to get up off the couch and try a bit harder, yeah?” John sucked in a breath, could not believe she would say something so insensitive, but was cut off before he could start shouting by a long, smooth laugh. Sherlock was laughing, delighted, eyes bright. Donovan looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but there was something like a smile on her face too.

“You’re a nutter,” she said moving to leave.

“And you’re a stone cold bitch,” Sherlock retorted, still laughing.

“Yeah,” she agreed, flicking her head again, and she actually raised her middle finger to flip him off. “Later, freak,” she said, and was off down the stairs and gone before John even knew what had happened.

*********************************

It was a month after they had come home from the hospital, and Sherlock was slowly coming to terms with the fact that this was all real. He was allowed to grab John’s hand when he wanted his attention – which was all the time. If he scratched at his growing hair, John would without fail pull his scratching restless hand away and replace it with strong, soothing rubs. He was allowed to slump against John on the couch, stare at the different colored strands of his hair from up-close, wear his jumpers (that had been a bit of a conversation but John had given up pretty quickly in the face of Sherlock’s barrage of reasoning), and he was pretty sure he was allowed to sleep in his bed, though he hadn’t yet dared to try.

Some of the things they had both listed a month ago during that fraught morning conversation had not yet come to pass, but there was an expectant air of potential in their interactions now. There was no pressure, but there was something there that whispered, you can have this. It’s yours. I’m yours.

John had slowly been reconnecting with Harry, and apparently was finding their sibling sniping and her advice helpful – something which Sherlock tried and failed to understand. John also called him ‘love’ at least once a day, entirely unselfconsciously. Sherlock couldn’t quite bring himself to reciprocate which did cause him some anxiety, but he had an idea of how to show it. He had been thinking about it for some time, and it absolutely terrified him, but the idea just would not go away after it had taken root. John had taken up some shifts at the surgery, and Sherlock waited on the day he was ready, a ball of tension, for him to come home.

John breezed into the room as he always did, tired but with a beaming smile at being back, but he paused as he took in the scene. Sherlock was sitting on the couch. He had cleared the coffee table completely so there was no confusion, and put one item in the middle of it so that John would know it was important.

It was the skull, transplanted from the mantelpiece.

John closed the door and hung up his coat, puzzled but apparently content to wait. Sherlock experienced a little pang of nausea, but there was no going back now. He stared at the skull as John came around to sit next to him.

“I want you to have it,” he said before he lost his nerve.

“OK…” said John, still waiting. Patient.

“There’s… well… it’s inside,” said Sherlock. John hummed in understanding, then reached out and picked up the skull to give it an experimental shake. There was a rattle, and then he tipped it to one side and the little key fell into his palm. Sherlock swallowed, hard. John put the skull back on the table and picked up the key, in his fingers, inspecting it closely.

“What does it open?” he asked, looking at Sherlock calmly. Sherlock took a deep breath, and John’s eyebrows drew together in concern.

“It… there’s… it’s a box,” he said quietly. This was turning out to be much, much harder than he had anticipated. But he wanted to do it, wanted it so badly. He had to. He couldn’t go out and back to the cases and the promise of their life to come, with the skull always there, staring at him.

“Alright,” John said slowly. “And there’s something important in this box, right?” Sherlock nodded, breathed in and out through his nose. “OK. Can you show me where it is?” John asked, and Sherlock nodded again, rising. He reached out mutely and John took his hand immediately, also rising. Sherlock led him into his bedroom, through the now-repaired door, over to the ornate dresser. He dropped John’s hand and pulled open the doors, reached up and moved the clothes aside to reveal the box. The beautiful, carved, deadly box. He stopped there, suddenly unable to reach for it. John waited, but when he realized that was all Sherlock was going to do, he nudged him aside with his hip and pulled the box down. He walked with it over to the bed, waited for Sherlock to join him.

“It’s pretty,” he said. There was confusion in his voice, but Sherlock could tell that John knew that something very important was going on. He wished that he could warn him what was in there first, but there was just no way. He just gestured at it, silently puzzling over what he could say. John put the key in the lock, turned it, heard the satisfying smooth click. Then he opened it, and stopped moving completely. His face was completely blank as he stared at the fragile glass and chemical contents.

“I…” Sherlock tried, and John turned that blank look on him. At least, the face was blank. The eyes were fierce, and Sherlock quailed. But he was no coward.

“You…” he said, stumbling over the words. “You said… you say… you call me, ‘love’,” he said, begging John to understand. John stared at him a moment longer, and then his face, his strong solid face, crumpled up like a piece of paper. He closed the box with one hand and put the other over his eyes.

“John?” Sherlock asked, taken aback. “John…I… I’m sorry…”

“Don’t you dare,” said John quietly, but it wasn’t angry. “Don’t you dare apologize to me,” and he uncovered his face. Sherlock gaped at him, because the removed hand hadn’t revealed anger, or incredulity, or sadness. It was … it was something like awe. John lunged towards him, wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s, pinning them to his side and squeezing hard enough to make Sherlock wince. “You… you… ridiculous, amazing, idiotic man,” John said wetly into Sherlock’s neck. “How can you still think you aren’t any good at this?” he asked, sniffing, but Sherlock wasn’t sure what he was talking about. He couldn’t hug back, because his arms were pinned, but he rested his face in John’s hair and just breathed. “You call me, ‘love’,” he repeated softly into the gold and grey strands, and John sighed, drawing back and releasing his arms, but then pulled Sherlock’s head towards him. He placed an unmistakable kiss onto Sherlock’s forehead, and Sherlock sagged in relief. John rested their foreheads together then, held both of his hands loosely in his own, the box between them.

“Must be because I love you,” he said, the words a wet coil of sandy gold. Sherlock agreed. It must be. And he breathed it in.

********************************

It was a month later. Mycroft observed the video feed on the screen in front of him dispassionately. It showed Lestrade, Sherlock, Dr. Watson and Ms. Donovan moving around the scene of a bombing on Hampstead Heath, though there was no sound. The odd thing was, the perpetrators appeared to have blown up… nothing. Why go to the trouble of moving and detonating illegal and expensive explosives in the middle of an empty field? It was vaguely intriguing, and it was with some satisfaction that he noted Sherlock’s interest as well. His brother was very good at picking out the really important incidents in the often-times bizarre tapestry of the London criminal underworld, something Mycroft thought he could take some minor piece of credit for.

He had confessed himself mildly concerned at the length of time Sherlock chose to remain ‘away’. He wondered if it was vanity – as surely the loss of his hair must have disturbed his brother greatly. But when he received reports of them, he concluded it was due to another reason. It seemed that Sherlock and Dr. Watson were now… Sherlock and Dr. Watson. Oddly enough, he couldn’t find it in himself to be disappointed in his brother for that.

On the screen, Sherlock was gesturing around the heath while no doubt shouting something intense and interesting at Ms. Donovan. His short black curls flicked up from his head as he gestured emphatically – there was still a prominent bald spot running down the left side, but in time the un-tamable mop would no doubt grow long enough to cover it up. Mycroft preferred his own slicked-back and controlled style, but that would have never worked for Sherlock. Sherlock was too flighty, too mobile, too… passionate, for anything like that. Dr. Watson certainly had his work cut out for him.

He sighed, glancing back down at the A4 brown envelope on his desk, the contents neatly aligned on the surface next to it.

“And we have no idea where it came from?” he said, leaning over it.

“Trace is working on it,” said Dr. Frida. She was standing behind him, taught and alert since she had arrived and handed him the envelope. “I don’t understand how this happened, sir,” she said regretfully. “We got to the lab immediately after the police, there was no way anyone could have…”

“And yet,” interrupted Mycroft smoothly, “here we are.” He picked up the one item that had been inside the envelope. An A4 color print-out of Sherlock’s unconventional brain scan. Over it, in black permanent marker, was written,

Hello, beautiful.

“A mole then,” he said, placing the paper back on his desk, nudging it so that the edges lined up neatly with the envelope.

“Yes sir,” said Frida, tensely. “What are your orders?” Mycroft scoffed, looking back up at the screen. It now showed Sherlock and Donovan arguing animatedly with about two inches of space between their faces, John and Lestrade attempting to intervene.

“Root out the mole,” he said sternly, watching them.

“Yes sir,” she confirmed quickly. “And… and your brother? Should we increase the detail on him?” Frida asked. The Sherlock on the screen was now waving his hands around in John’s direction, probably still shouting, while John rolled his eyes, arms folded.

“Yes…” said Mycroft, but there was a quirk to the lips that might have been called a smile by some. “But remind them not to get too close,” he cautioned, still watching the screen.

“My brother can take care of himself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this were a movie, the end credits would roll to this song:
> 
> Sia ft. Labyrinth, “To be human”. 
> 
> Link to lyric video: https://youtu.be/0lyKboAb5Wc
> 
> Selected lyrics:
> 
> Can you help me not to care? Every breath becomes a prayer,  
> Take this pain from me.  
> And oh, you’re so far now, so far from my arms now…
> 
> Just ‘cos I predicted this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.  
> What’s the point of knowing it, if you can’t change it?
> 
> To be human is to love, even when it gets too much,  
> I’m not ready to give up…  
> To be human is to love, even when it gets too much,  
> There’s no reason to give up…  
> Don’t give up.
> 
> *******************************
> 
> That’s it, we made it! Thank you to all my wonderful readers, everyone who left comments and chatted with me about the story, and everyone who is (hopefully) going to come along and read it now it is complete. 
> 
> I will still be reading and responding to comments for quite some time yet, so please drop me a note and let me know what you thought! 
> 
> The website John was on is www.asexuality.org and AVEN stands for The Asexuality Education and Visibility Network. If anything that Sherlock or John were saying in this chapter resonated with you – you are not alone! You are not broken, or incomplete, or unlovable. You are human, and to be human is to love. That love might not look like you were taught it was going to look like, but that’s OK. We live and learn. Be brave, and don’t give up.


End file.
